


If Only The Gold...

by Trogdor19



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Best Friends, Drama & Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, John B is a Good Friend, Long-Distance Relationship, Long-Term Relationship(s), Love, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Pogues (Outer Banks), Polyamory, Polyfidelity, Romance, Teen Romance, Threesome - F/M/M, Triad - Freeform, love is love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:55:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 114,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24671173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trogdor19/pseuds/Trogdor19
Summary: When JJ & Pope get together, it = 🔥🔥🔥 But then, they both still kind of have a thing for Kie…10 tumultuous years in the life of Outer Banks’ favorite throuple.JJ/Kiara/Pope M/M/F
Relationships: JJ/Kiara (Outer Banks), JJ/Kiara/Pope (Outer Banks), JJ/Pope (Outer Banks), Kiara & Pope (Outer Banks)
Comments: 314
Kudos: 307





	1. It Started With A Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: This is a M/M/F polyamorous (committed closed triad) fic with explicit sex. I don’t know birthdates, but we’re going to bump the timeline up until all characters are in senior year and 18. Also, the actors who play them (who are what we’re all picturing anyway) are all over 21, so I figure explicit fics are fair game. However, if you’re not okay with a throuple fic, you may want to skip this one. And if you’re not sure, stick around and allow me to coax you into loving it!
> 
> As I say to all my hardcore long-term readers: trust me, let me go there, and I will make it worth your while.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters or this world, and this is for entertainment only. Spoilers through S1 finale.

_[Voiceover from Kiara]_

_When you’re young, your blood is hot and you don’t want to listen to anybody’s plans for your life. Sometimes not even your own._

_But then, when you try to step outside the box, you end up walking right down the path of your fate. Sometimes in ways you won’t understand for another decade. And you couldn’t have stepped as perfectly if you’d known every inch of the path in advance._

_This is the story of the fate I didn’t see coming._

**Chapter 1: It Started With A Kiss**

* * *

It’s possible the kiss never would have happened if it weren’t for the gold.

The whole year since John B and Sarah had come back from the dead—and the Bahamas—the group had been inseparable. Not in the easy, always-seem-to-find-each-other way that they had before, but more of an anxious wolf pack kind of vibe. Like when they couldn’t all see each other, they couldn’t quite sit still. Of course, there was the Barry thing, and the Ward thing, because of course he made it out on bail.

But mostly, it was that they couldn’t stand to be apart, now that they knew how final that could feel.

It was nice, most of the time. Comforting, boisterous. Annoying, at others. But privacy? Nah, not really a thing.

The only reason Pope was alone in his room with JJ for the first time in forever was because the other two were at their lawyers’ offices. The lawyers were happy to work solely on commission to fight for the Pogues’ ownership of the gold.

The case was as water tight as the skin on a frog’s ass, the head guy had said. The only problem was that they had a classic case of rich man corruption, and his fancy lawyers could tie this up in appeals basically forever or until all the money had been eaten up in legal fees. But this firm was willing to fight, basically forever. For money, obviously, but also because two of them had gone to high school with Ward Cameron and definitely hated his ass.

It was a local law firm, thankfully. The first comment endeared them to JJ. The second to Kiara. The third to John B. But then Pope had to point out that frog’s skin wasn’t watertight at all: it was actually porous to water and a number of pollutants. And Kiara had to ask if they were only willing to fight forever because then they would de-facto get the gold through all those legal fees, and JJ wanted to whittle down their cut, and that was basically the whole problem.

The lawyers liked the case’s chances, but they didn’t like four opinionated teenagers all talking over each other in their office. So the limit became two at a time: usually John B because it was his dad’s gold first, and Kiara because she was the best at keeping it professional and decoding lawyer speak into real language.

That left JJ to sprawl off Pope’s bed with his head out the window, the sun catching gold in his hair and going hazy through the clouds of marijuana vape smoke he exhaled out into the air where Heyward wouldn’t smell it when he got home. A stack of flash cards rested on JJ’s chest, and when Pope kicked his foot, he obediently lifted another and squinted at it.

“Kreb’s Cycle,” JJ prompted.

“A series of chemical reactions used by all aerobic organisms to release stored energy into ATP and CO2.”

“Also known as…”

“Citric acid cycle. Does it say on there what ATP stands for? I forgot.”

“Adenosine triphosphate,” JJ said. “You wrote it on like six other fucking cards, dude. I don’t know how many times you’ve got to repeat that shit.” He took another hit, exhaling as he stared up at the sky, the blue behind him turning hazy and soft from the cloud.

Pope still remembered what it felt like to be high, from that one wild day before they lost John B. It had been good, but it still didn’t feel half as relaxing as it looked when JJ did it. Watching JJ smoke was Pope’s version of getting high. Like as his body unwound, Pope’s tension went with it. Even now, Pope’s shoulders were starting to slump deeper in his office chair, his eyelids getting heavy. He kicked his feet up on the bed, bare toes nudging JJ’s calves.

Pot was supposed to affect your short term memory, he knew that from school, but it didn’t seem to touch JJ. If he heard something out loud, anything, he could repeat it. Whether it was Barry’s coke delivery schedule or the specs for rebuilding a carburetor. If he read it, he couldn’t even remember it well enough to copy it onto another piece of paper. But if he _heard_ it, he could write it down perfectly. And did, whenever Pope’s hands cramped from writing too much and he needed JJ to copy down his homework. It tended to happen a lot, for the few classes they took together.

“Dude, I don’t know what’s wrong with your AP bio class that you’re still studying this shit.” JJ sat up, scattering flashcards everywhere as he flipped his hair out of his face. “We’re going over all this same crap in my class. Shouldn’t you be on to, I don’t know, astrophysics or something?”

“These are the basics. It all ties into the uh, lab experiments we’re doing. That’s where it gets into the AP stuff.”

JJ eyed him. “Isn’t chemistry for lab experiments, not bio?”

Shit. He was so not selling his cover story.

“All branches of science have experiments,” Pope blurted. “The whole scientific method is based on experimentation and repeatability. And it can be applied to everything, even non-science related methodologies like fishing and—”

“Jesus, stop, stop, Professor. Enough school already. There’s a kegger tonight and I need to kill all the brain cells you just grew in my head from those endless flashcards. You really have to learn how to study on your own someday, man.”

“Yeah, uh. Soon. I’ll get right on that.” As soon as JJ started passing everything with the C average he needed to graduate.

JJ lay back down, his shirt gapping to show a smooth stretch of golden tanned skin above the waist of his cargo shorts. The vape pen hissed as he took another long hit, then held it in for so long that Pope started to worry about lung damage before JJ exhaled, the sound slow and low in a way that made Pope’s shoulders unknot.

“Weather’s warming up,” JJ said, his lips forming the words through clouds of vape smoke. They tipped toward a smile. “That means lots of touron girls coming to the island on vacation. Daddy’s little princess is just about to get her sexual awakening a la JJ.”

Pope glanced away, picking up his AP Biology textbook and flicking a pencil against its edge. He should have gotten up early this morning to surf. The room seemed too small this afternoon and he was restless from too much studying—especially since he’d have to do all of his _own_ studying in the wee hours after the kegger since this afternoon had gone to all his faked flashcards for JJ’s classes.

The pencil bounced too hard off the textbook and ricocheted out of his hand. He didn’t have anything to write down anyway, so he didn’t retrieve it.

“Man, what is it with you and the touron girls, anyway? You got a problem with the Kildare Island girls?”

JJ grinned. “Touron girls are on vacation. They like to get a little wild when they’re slumming. Sometimes, they let you put it in their butt.”

Pope twitched, and when the wind blew in off the sea, it ruffled the pages of the textbook against his wrist, tickling the skin and making the fine hairs on his arm stand on end. He slammed the book closed, tossed it onto the floor.

“What’s your problem?” JJ asked, kicking one ankle up across his upbent knee. “You never heard about anything but missionary?”

He moved again, rolling up to sitting in a pull of lithe muscle that reminded Pope of those full-body _snaps_ he used to turn his board along the crest of a wave. JJ could move faster than anybody else he knew, like his muscles were just more awake than everybody else’s.

JJ kicked at the textbook, twisting some of the pages. “It’s just biooology, Pope.” He drew the word out in a teasing singsong.

“Shut up.” Pope stood to retrieve the book and dropped back onto the bed with a bounce, opening the book to fix the rumpled pages. He dodged a glance at JJ as he smoothed a page on cardiovascular dilation. “You’ve really done that? Butt stuff, I mean.”

“Loads of times.” JJ flicked his vape pen up in the air, caught it, and made it walk over his knuckles, his silver rings flashing. “It’s tight as hell. Kinky, you know.”

“Why would they—I mean, doesn’t it hurt?”

The vape pen walked back over JJ’s facile knuckles the opposite way. “If you go slow, it doesn’t hurt.” His blue eyes twinkled as he slung a sidelong look at Pope. “I work it so pain is the last thing they’re feeling, trust me.”

Pope swallowed. Being a virgin at eighteen was the lamest possible thing. It wasn’t even like he was dying to have sex so much as he just wanted it to be something that was…behind him. Something he could say “loads of times” about and then focus on stuff that was really important. 

“How do you…I mean, how can you know that?”

JJ hopped up, the vape pen disappearing into his pocket. He pulled a hacky sack out of his other pocket and toed it back up into the air a couple of times. “Lube, first off. But mostly, my dear Watson, it’s about the foreplay.”

“Right, yeah, I mean obviously.” Pope gave a dry chuckle that came out sounding wrong.

The hacky sack went back in his pocket. Pope didn’t realize his truck keys were missing off his dresser until JJ waved his hand over the bedside table and they appeared again. In another life, JJ could have made a half-decent stage magician. He never stole from Pope’s house, or his dad’s store, but it was hard for him to resist practicing. Heyward did not appreciate JJ’s constant rearranging of his inventory, even though he always left all the merchandise behind before he crossed the threshold back to the outside world.

“You start with kissing,” JJ said. “Don’t rush it, enjoy that part. Chicks hate it when they think you’ve only got your eye on the finish line, anyway. Then a little touching—don’t get distracted by their boobs, make sure you put in your time inside the panties, too.” The hacky sack had returned and he tossed it behind his back, caught it again, and collapsed onto the bed next to Pope, lying back. “Then, you take your time getting inside, you know what I’m saying? Play a little, take it slow. Lots of lube so everything slides.”

Pope was breathing way too fast. He stopped entirely, trying to be chill about it, like the topic was no big deal. JJ had no problem talking about sex stuff, and as long as Kiara wasn’t around to overhear, Pope was so up to glean as many details as he could. It was just research, so when his chance with a girl finally came around, he’d have half a clue what he was doing. Preparation was the key to success. The problem was, this particular topic made him feel…funny.

He swallowed, and that stuck, and he had to clear his throat. Quickly, so JJ hopefully wouldn’t notice and think he was being a blushy freaking virgin.

JJ sat up, his elbows leaned on his knees and his whole body jiggling from his right heel tapping the floor. He snatched his hat off the window frame where it’d fallen earlier, and squeezed the brim between his hands, reshaping it. Then flipping it and catching it.

“Too weird for you, Pope? Not kinky like that?” It was the smallest scrap of a look JJ shot over, but Pope still hurried to shake his head.

“Nah, no. I mean, I’m fine with whatever. I mean, not that I’ve—but I mean if you do that’s…cool.” His voice fucking squeaked on the last word.

JJ’s lips turned up at the corner and his hands stilled on his hat, letting it hang between his knees. “Cool, huh? So like, you’d try it someday?”

“I don’t know, man.” Pope tried another chuckle and this one came out a little easier. “I’m still hoping to check blow job off the bucket list someday. Don’t want to press my luck, you know?”

“So you don’t think it’s weird.” It came out of JJ rough, like an accusation.

Pope frowned. “No. Why would I?”

JJ dropped his hat onto his head and sat up, leaning his weight back on one hand. The mattress dipped from the change in pressure and their legs bumped. “Wasn’t always with girls, that’s why.”

Pope was breathing way, way too fast and he couldn’t entirely stop anymore. “Okay.”

“Okay like cool, or okay like you don’t believe me?” JJ pushed off the mattress to stand. Pope was used to his constant changes in position, the way he could only be still in his mind if his body was moving. But this time, Pope caught JJ’s wrist before he could fidget away.

“Okay like cool,” Pope said firmly, holding his friend’s eyes.

JJ’s expression lightened and he smiled a little before he ducked his head. “Yeah. Right.”

“What, did you think I was like one of those homophobic Kooks, is that why you didn’t mention it before?”

JJ’s wrist was hot under his hand. His metabolism always ran high, but today sweat sprang between their skin even faster than normal. But Pope didn’t let go. If this was JJ coming out, if that’s what this was, he wanted there to be no question where he stood.

JJ shrugged, but he didn’t try to pull out of Pope’s grip. “No. ‘Course I didn’t, bro. But—”

“But nothing,” interrupted Pope. “I got you. And we’re cool. Whoever you are, whoever you _want_ , you’re my boy. Pogues for life.”

JJ rolled his eyes. “No need to get all emotional and speechy about it. It was just a little butt sex between friends. Well, Grindr friends.” He winked. “God bless technology, right?”

“So it wasn’t one—” Pope swallowed, trying to get the weird tone out of his voice. “One of the other guys from the marina?”

JJ smirked. “Jealous? You got the hots for one of them?”

“No.” He let go of JJ’s wrist, because there was really no reason to still be hanging on. “Was it—did you like it? As much as with the girls, I mean?” He paused. “I’m sorry, that’s none of my business. That was really invasive.”

“‘That was really invasive’,” JJ parroted in a falsetto and then laughed. “Are you serious? What, we can’t talk about this stuff if it’s about dudes? Because yeah.” JJ’s voice was weird now, too. Scratchy, or rougher, or something that was making Pope want to rub his knuckles into his own twitching thigh muscles. “I liked it. As much as with the girls. Maybe more, actually, because the guy I met—he was really into it. Rough and fast, you know.”

Pope did not know.

He was thinking about it very hard, though, trying to picture what rough might look like, when it was two men. When it was the kind of rough you could like.

He was thinking about it so hard that it was maybe why he didn’t notice right away when JJ started to lean closer. They were already sitting side-by-side, and JJ moved all the time, touched him all the time. So by the time Pope registered that JJ’s face was closer than normal, it was right, _right_ there and he didn’t have time to push the sexual, heady pictures out of his head before JJ’s lips brushed his.

Pope had kissed before— _been_ kissed, actually, for the first time by Lucia Rodriguez at the eighth grade dance, lips squishing against his.

This was not like that.

This was like oxygen, hot and necessary, and vaporizing like it had never been as soon as it was over. The tingles spreading from his lips were his only clue that it had really happened once JJ pulled away.

“Bro,” JJ said. “You just let me do that.”

Maybe it was a strange thing to say, but Pope didn’t know because his… _everything_ felt strange right now. He grabbed JJ, gripping the cut between his shoulder and his neck. His other hand clawed against JJ’s knee, fingers digging in.

“Whoa,” JJ said. “Dude, are you having one of your things?”

It was how he’d held onto JJ in the past, when he had a panic attack. JJ hadn’t known what they were at first. Had asked Pope if he’d ever had acid, like it might be a flashback. But usually now, JJ knew to grip Pope right back, his fingers wrapped around the nape of his neck with their foreheads pressed together. Pogues for life. Brothers, together, in whatever would come.

It calmed Pope down faster than anything, even better than Kiara’s soft hands or John B’s bad knock knock jokes. Gripping onto JJ made Pope feel normal.

But not right now. Right now, his heart was beating really much faster than the prescribed resting heart rate of between 60 and 100 beats per minute. 78 was Pope’s normal.

This was so not a 78 kind of moment.

“Are you freaking out, man?” JJ said warily. “Because if you’re freaking out, we can say that never happened. Poof.” He waved his hands. “Just like that. Gone.”

Pope had no idea if that was what he wanted, because he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that kiss. Had he liked it? Not liked it? He wasn’t entirely sure, but he felt like he _should_ be sure. If he was straight, he should have hated that. Had he hated it?

He had a very alarming feeling that he might not have hated it.

“No,” Pope managed. “I—” He looked at JJ. “Can I try that again?”

JJ smirked. “Be my guest, bro.”

“I’m not joking,” Pope said. It wasn’t the most eloquent he’d ever been, but it was important that his friend understood. He stared JJ down, not moving forward.

JJ shrugged, his eyes flicking to the side. “Cool. Okay.” His knee started to bounce.

Pope touched his cheek, trying to steady JJ so Pope wouldn’t do something embarrassing, like miss his lips, but JJ’s face felt so much like…JJ. And so nothing at all like a girl. Not Jewel, the tourist girl he’d kissed in tenth grade, or Rachel, in eleventh. Not even like Kiara, for that one there-and-gone kiss that was over before it really even registered, after John B left. They’d all been fine, pleasant even, but he hadn’t felt this quaking in every part of him like this was something bigger than he had a name for. Something so big he couldn’t even totally tell if it was terrifying or wonderful.

JJ’s jaw muscle was hard, his skin the smallest bit rough with growing stubble. Pope leaned closer, forgetting to close his eyes until the last minute. At first, it was just their lips pressing together. Too hard and then too soft, finding the right pressure. Then his lips naturally found the crease between JJ’s and the softest stroke of tongue over the other man’s lips had him shaking from head to toe.

He pulled back, feeling on the verge of detonation. Maybe not even physically, but mentally, emotionally, hormonally. Okay, maybe physically. Maybe _way_ physically. Pope had the distant thought that he’d love to have a machine hooked to chart his vitals right now because he’d bet they were all way outside normal parameters.

“Oh.” Pope tried to catch his breath, failed. Squeezed a shaking hand into a fist against his knee and stared at his friend. His lover? What did you call a person whose kiss could turn your entire self inside out in the space of a second?

“Are you going to freak out, bro?”

Pope nodded. “Yes, um, yup. I think freaking out is indeed going to happen. JJ, did you—was that—”

JJ grinned. “Are you going to give me the old ‘was it good for you’? Because I feel like it might be early in our relationship for that.” He cuffed Pope in the shoulder, gently. “Save it for after you get me to put out, you fucking overachiever.”

Pope laughed, his eyes falling closed as he sucked in a breath. He was so glad it had been JJ. If a kiss was going to change everything about what he understood about himself, he was so glad they were alone and it was just JJ, his best friend who was cool with him and all his weirdnesses.

“Well, I guess I’m gay,” Pope said.

“You really, really are,” JJ said. “Damn, son.”

Pope laughed, and scrubbed at his forehead. “Wow. What the hell. Wow.” He looked back at JJ, and his friend’s blue eyes sparked with interest.

“Easy, tiger. Give a guy some warning if you’re going to pounce.”

“No, hey.” Pope put up his hands, suddenly worried he’d misread this. “I didn’t mean, that since you’d been with guys, that I was assuming anything about your preferences, or that you necessarily have to be okay with doing stuff with me. I would never assume—”

“That just because I kissed you, and then you kissed me back a fucking way lot better, that maybe I’d be into it?” JJ waved a grandiose hand, water-logged friendship bracelets slipping over his strong wrist. “Please, assume away. Just assume anything that pretty mouth of yours wants to assume.”

Pope’s eyes widened and JJ choked on a laugh, reaching out and gripping his shoulder.

“Don’t pass out, dude. I didn’t mean we had to go there. You’ve known you were gay for like four minutes. I know ‘blow job’ is on your bucket list but we can check it off another day.”

“We?” Pope didn’t mean the question to escape, but his heart felt like it was growing bigger, pressing hard against his ribs like it had filled up with helium, even lighter and more buoyant than air.

JJ shrugged, a languid movement, though his thumb was flicking at his fingers, the flashes of his silver ring giving away the tic. “I’m into it. Let’s leave it at that for now.”

Pope couldn’t stop looking at him. The idea of JJ as his best friend rearranging into an entirely different category. Expanding, really, to cover multiple columns in his mental spreadsheet and God knew how many rows. JJ was good looking, shit of course Pope knew that, how JJ was all grace and slim muscle and those bright, sunny-lashed eyes. But now he could feel the heat radiating between them, too. The way JJ’s easy sexuality seemed charged with electricity now, wired directly into Pope’s veins so all his blood lit right the fuck up and his whole body seemed on the verge of malfunctioning.

“Um,” Pope said.

JJ slipped a hand around his neck, holding the back. Softer than he usually did, but just as grounding.

“Can I? This time?” It was low, almost a growl. It was the voice of a man who’d done this before and knew what he wanted..

Pope nodded, gritting his teeth together just to feel like some part of him was solid, reliable. And not on the verge of some kind of emotional whirlwind he didn’t totally understand.

“Shove me off if you start to freak out,” JJ said, which was weird and blunt, and so fucking JJ.

He kissed him once, quick, a slick of his tongue sneaking inside and gone before Pope could even gasp.

“Okay?”

Pope tried to nod, and a full-body shiver took the tremor all the way to his toes. He had goosebumps, and he was shaking. Fuck, this would be embarrassing if he was with anyone else, but he knew JJ wouldn’t care. It was just nuts that Pope could go from not knowing at all to suddenly _this_.

Knowing this more than he knew anything else on the planet. More clearly than quadratic equations, or vital sign ranges, or anatomy charts.

JJ’s hand tightened, and when he came back to Pope, he kissed him ferociously. Tipping him backwards, his body rubbing hotly over Pope’s, and whoa, JJ was _into_ this. He was rough and intense. Some deep part of Pope was unsurprised, like he’d somehow known JJ would be this way in bed. The other part thrilled giddily to it because _this_ , this was exactly what all the wildness in him was calling for.

He writhed, panting, as JJ sucked wet kisses down his neck, scraping his pulse with blunt teeth and then biting—fuck, actually biting, _yes_ —the thick muscle of his shoulder.

Pope gripped great handfuls of JJ’s tee shirt. He had a moment to be surprised and then mortified that he’d swelled straight past a semi to fully hard and now his dick was caught in a twist of his boxers. He needed to adjust, and was that cool? Or was that showing all his cards like whoa, he couldn’t even mack a little without boning out? But then JJ adjusted for him, a quick flick of his fingers freeing Pope’s increasingly painful predicament. He didn’t even have a full moment to be embarrassed about that before JJ came down over him, his own erection rubbing Pope’s zipper fly, and oh holy _fuck_.

He’d seen JJ naked before, a thousand times. Hard, only once when they were young and dumb enough to bust out the ruler on a sleepover and measure. His friend had grown since then, clearly, and Pope found himself deeply interested in exactly how much he had grown.

But then he lost his train of thought as JJ pinned his hands over his head. Their palms came together, fingers tangling as he ducked back to Pope’s mouth, devouring him hot and hard in a way that was ferociously satisfying.

Pope stopped thinking at all.

It had been so long since that happened that the sensation of mental quiet was as unfamiliar and heady as everything else. JJ’s scent was with him, familiar in a sea of everything new. Expensive, stolen cologne, open sea air, and the dark tinge of gasoline from his dirt bike. His body was hard and lithe, and lighter atop him than Pope had expected, JJ’s hips grinding down to him and whoa, and both of them were _so_ fucking wound up.

This couldn’t be happening. Kissing couldn’t be this good, his body couldn’t still be this hungry when JJ was already touching him everywhere. JJ rocked against him, holding him steady between the mattress and his body, their fingers clinging like they were embracing in the midst of an entirely new kind of panic attack. Something was building in his body.

Pope only had instants to realize what was bearing down on him before he was ripping his hand out of JJ’s and gripping himself through his shorts, breathing with great gasping breaths. He wasn’t even self-conscious, that’s how acute his need was to _come_.

Now, _immediately_ , or every cell in his brain was going to burn itself down from the inside.

“Fuck, yes,” JJ growled and bit his ear, running his tongue along it in a fiery line.

Pope ripped open his shorts and grabbed his cock, out of his fucking mind and beyond all thought.

“Jesus,” JJ growled and then his hand was there, too, helping Pope shove his boxers out of the way. His hand didn’t join Pope’s inside his underwear, though, just gripped Pope’s flexing ass, urging him to push harder, faster as Pope thrust into his own fist. The tangled band of JJ’s friendship bracelets pushed against the bare skin of Pope’s hip and he keened, making a sound that was damn near pain. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

“Do it,” JJ whispered. “Fuck, you’re sexy.” He tipped Pope’s head back, his thumb skimming soft over his throat. “I’ve got you, man. I’ve fucking got you.” His tongue followed the line drawn by his thumb, all the way up under Pope’s ear. He started growling uneven bites against the skin, hot and wet and completely out of control and then Pope was exploding, jerking at himself so frantically it almost hurt.

Lights flashed behind his eyelids as he fell slack, shaking all over and his tongue so dry it stuck to the roof of his mouth.

“Fuck,” JJ said, and his hand cupped Pope’s face. Casual and sure. “I’ve never seen any shit like that. You’re—”

“Repressed?” Pope gasped, coming back to himself enough to feel the first edge of embarrassment. “I think the word you’re looking for is repressed.”

“I was thinking hot.” JJ kissed him. “Really goddamn hot.”

He sat back on his heels and Pope shoved himself back into his pants, wiping his wet hand on his totally destroyed tee shirt so he could zip up. “Yeah, I’d better—” he muttered, pulling his shirt off over his head before JJ could see the immensity of the wet spot. Jeez, it looked like he’d been saving up for that his entire life. He scooted sideways, trying to get off the bed, but JJ caught his wadded tee shirt and had it out of his hand before he could.

“Missed some,” he said and used the tee shirt to dry some skin beneath Pope’s throat. “You got some range on that one.” He tossed the stained tee shirt to the floor like they’d done this a million times, then caught Pope by the back of his neck, pulling him into a strong hug. “Don’t get weird on me.”

“Not getting weird.”

“Just a little macking.”

“And I sort of jerked off. All over you.”

JJ’s hand twitched. “Fuck, say that again.”

Pope started to laugh, and once he did, it unwound something in his chest and he couldn’t stop. “I should have guessed you’d be the same level of horndog with guys as with girls.” He flopped back, his body suddenly liquid and shakily relaxed. Released in a way he never felt when it was just him and his hand alone under the covers.

JJ grinned and lay down next to him, propping his head up on a hand. “Hey, at least I’m consistent.”

Pope gazed at him, his mental spreadsheet still calculating the algorithm of this new reality. He was still thinking about all those girls at the Boneyard, disappearing into the bedroom at the Chateau with JJ. Off to the lifeguard shack with the broken lock. The gym bathrooms, that one time. “So are you, uh…bi?” he ventured.

JJ shrugged. “Maybe gay? Dunno, I guess I like boobs. And all those touron girls, I didn’t mind it much, no matter which way we did it. But…” He trailed a finger down Pope’s bare chest, watching him in a way that made goosebumps stand out all over. Pope swallowed, and he thought he might understand exactly what lay beyond JJ’s ellipses.

Nothing. Because there’d never been anything like that for him with anyone else.

“How do I know…” Pope almost stopped himself, but it was just JJ. The guy who’d let Pope throw up in his favorite hat when he got a very sudden bout of the flu on the bus in middle school. “How do I know if I like men in general?” he said. “Or just you?”

JJ’s eyes gleamed, and a shy little smile flicked over his face before he pulled off his hat and smoothed it back on, backwards. “Probably it’s just me. I’m pretty great.”

Pope rolled his eyes. “It was a serious question.” He glanced around for his phone. “There have to be resources for this issue on the internet, perhaps some peer reviewed research.”

“I don’t need my peers to review shit for me to know what I want.” JJ pushed Pope back on the bed and crawled up over him.

Pope knew, somehow, that it was important that he sort out what this all meant for him. But JJ was doing something terrifically interesting with his tongue at the moment.

And he also knew JJ, and his friend’s attention span, and how it was never the same girl disappearing into the bedroom at the Chateau twice. It was highly probable that this would be Pope’s only chance, at feeling this good. At being with his best friend in this deeper, more heady and intimate way. And he didn’t want to miss a second of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Huge thanks to xoxoLibro for her beta work on this fic, and for making me laugh until I choked so many times that they should really rename the Heimlich in her honor. And a warm and beautiful welcome to Lex, who will be joining us as my authenticity/sensitivity reader for this fic. All wisdom, hers. All mistakes, mine.


	2. The Best Kind of Friends

_It’s whatever._

It’s what JJ had said when Pope had tried to mumble his way into asking what they were now. But his eyes had been kind, casual in that easy JJ way where nothing was really that big of a deal. Not even when the fists were flying, or the gasoline was splashing, or the cops were coming. You were never more than an hour’s cool-off from forgiveness with JJ, because like he always said, whatever you’d done? He’d probably done worse.

Pope tipped his head toward the rest of the boat. He was lying on the bow where the breeze could cool his sun-heated skin. JJ and John B both had lines in the water. Kie was holding the boat to a steady trolling speed, her hair flickering across her elbows as she squinted against the sun. A moment later, she stole JJ’s hat to hook it onto her own head. She smacked his hand when he tried to steal it back, and he taxed a big gulp of her beer in retaliation. His bright hair flew in the wind as he bickered with John B about the best brand of trolling lure, and how to reproduce them on the cheap with scrap metal and pliers.

 _Let’s keep it open_ , JJ had said. _So you can experiment._

Pope nodded, as if this was a thing he knew all about, and when he got home, he googled it.

Urban Dictionary defined “Let’s keep it open” as a farewell given amongst pimps referring to _keeping_ their pimp hand _open_ so as to not damage their stable when bitch slapping.

This did not appear applicable to their situation.

Merriam Webster had defined “leave or keep one’s options open” as an idiom indicating that one intended to wait before making a final decision about something, to allow for the possibility of having a different choice.

Which seemed to indicate that JJ might wish to make a different boyfriend choice than Pope. The data was consistent with this, considering JJ rarely wished to limit his sexual options. It also made logical sense, since Pope wasn’t exactly a hot commodity in the Kildare Island dating pool. He had been, really briefly after JJ had gleaned from TV that what women wanted in men was six-pack abs, and they spent the whole summer in an endless, sweaty sit-up contest.

But it turned out conversational skills were still required, and those turned out to be a good deal harder to master than sit-ups.

All the data suggested that what JJ had really wanted was a “hook up,” which the Urban Dictionary defined as having any form of intimacy with a member of the preferred sex that you didn’t consider a significant other.

Except JJ’d also said, _You’ve already got me. So sort out whatever you need to, it’s no big thing._

He’d said it with his fingers brushing Pope’s ear and just beneath, on this spot on his neck that was like thirty times more sensitive than he’d previously calculated. He’d said it with his eyes looking like Pope had never seen them look: kind of sparkly and even more relaxed and casual than usual, but with that ever-present spark of energy. Like, super-JJ eyes, if that made any sense, which of course it didn’t.

The eyes, however, had been very distracting, as had the kissing, and Pope had never quite circled back to asking JJ what it meant that Pope apparently already “had” him.

He did not feel like he had him.

He didn’t feel like he had anything, except a restlessness beneath all of his skin and a constant need to move, except lately he was clumsy and always tripping over everything, and he got hard at just like…everything. As if that super-orgasm had super-charged his dick. He was always having to swim to counteract the effects with the cold water, and his constantly wet swim trunks were starting to give him a rash.

He glanced up at JJ. His back was slim and golden-tanned as always, like he almost got brighter with some sun, instead of browner. But his shoulders seemed bulkier, like he’d been doing more pushups, or hauling bigger loads at the restaurant. He looked free, and wild, and hot as a freaking magazine model for really thick-knitted sweaters, and not like anything that could ever be Pope’s.

Awareness stirred beneath Pope’s belly button and he sat up before the fabric of his trunks visibly lifted. “Hey Kie, can you take a pause? I need a quick swim.”

“Again? Are you getting the hot flashes or what, man?” John B complained.

“Change of life, bro,” JJ said, then crowed, “Fish on!” He reeled quickly, his tricep flexing and Pope winced, tearing his eyes away.

“Soon, Kie?”

“If you need to piss, just do it off the boat,” John B said. “Even if you’re in the water, if you do it through your shorts, it never really washes out all the way and gets skunky.”

“Just wash your trunks sometime in a blue moon,” Kie advised. “That’s your real problem, JB.” She cut the engine, nodding to Pope.

JJ turned around, the fish on the end of his line flipping madly as he held it above Pope, laughing as it flicked fish-smelling seawater everywhere. “See? You’ve got your own personal misting machine. Hot flash begone!”

Pope swatted the fish away, trying to keep it from touching his face without hurting it, because it was too small for JJ to probably bother keeping it. He bit back a smile at the bright sound of JJ’s laughter. “Yeah, don’t think that personal misting system is going to catch on for McMansion patios all across the Figure 8 anytime soon.”

JJ dropped the fish over the edge and released the hook in its mouth with a quick flip of needle-nose pliers. “Be free, little Willy.”

Pope’s cock twitched at the tame double entendre. He rolled his eyes at himself and dove overboard. When he surfaced, it was to the familiar sound of Kie chewing JJ out.

“It was probably too wounded to swim! How do you know it’s not going to just go off and die now?”

“It was too small to fillet,” JJ said. “Besides, I snapped the barbs off my hooks after you just ‘bout snapped my balls off for it.” He cupped the front of his trunks. “I do value certain things enough to change my behavior.”

“Ew,” she said distinctly, in response to his gesture. “But I’m glad you switched to barbless hooks, though.”

Pope wasn’t really tracking the conversation, because he was still thinking about that quick flick of JJ’s wrist when he’d released the fish. He’d thought, when JJ kissed him, that the awareness of being gay had hit him all at once, like a truck full of bricks. He’d never had a single thought about it before, never really wondered if that was one of the thousand ways he was different.

Except that when he thought back, he kind of had. Even when puberty started, it was more of an extra awareness in his body than a clear lust for another person. It was more that he liked to watch the swell of Kie’s breasts above her bikini top, the inward nip of her waist and the geometrically perfect curve of her hip. He caught himself watching her a lot, especially when she was dancing or swimming, and would always look away. But then, he ended up looking at JJ a lot, too. It just never occurred to him to look away or feel guilty about that, because nobody cared when you stared at dudes.

He just liked the way JJ moved. That quick snap of muscle, the careless swagger, the way his hands seemed almost gentle when he resettled his hat on his head. How his tongue worried at the inside of his lip and his jaw flexed when he was upset.

Also, lately Pope got a lot of erections. But he read that was just testosterone. The release of testosterone from using large muscle groups often produced tumescence. So it made sense that he’d pop wood when he and JJ were wrestling, or out surfing together. He’d just never connected that to a direct effect of _watching_ JJ surf, his body leaning back against the wave like he made his own gravity. Stretched out impossibly far, then snapping back into a curl, cutting in and down the wave, crouching under the foaming break of the surf. Pope always studied JJ, trying to figure out how to surf and balance better, run faster, hit harder. And he usually did it when they were performing athletic activities together, so he’d thought that’s what the hard ons were about.

“Pope!”

He blinked, spitting water as a small wave splashed into his face, leaving behind a taste of salt and marsh grass. “Yeah?”

Kie stood at the edge of the boat, her hands on her hips. John B looked up from fishing, and JJ was standing next to Kie, his fishing pole propped against his hip as he considered Pope.

“I asked if you had cooled off enough,” she repeated impatiently. “I’ve got to be back by four to pick up a napkin delivery at the ferry.”

“I’ve got community service at 4:30,” JJ said, and Pope flushed with a different kind of heat. Since their lawyers were still filing motions to try to prove their claim on the gold, JJ was still slowly paying off restitution for the boat-sinking charges he’d taken for Pope. Half Pope’s wages went to saving for college, and the other half went to JJ’s restitution. When John B hauled a big enough net of fish to sell it to Ginny down at the dock, that money went to JJ’s restitution. All Kie’s tips from the Wreck. It was like an endless pit of guilt, how his friends all pitched in to cover his restitution. And after nearly two years, it was still upwards of twenty grand from being paid.

If only the gold would come through. That restitution would disappear like a blink and they wouldn’t all be grinding away, still trying to erase the one fucking moment when Pope had snapped and done exactly as he pleased instead of thinking of the consequences.

“Bro,” JJ called, his tangled hair blowing across his eyes and those beautiful lips chapped from the sun.

Pope started to swim back toward the boat. There was a lesson in there somewhere, and if he was smart, he’d make a thousand flash cards so he’d remember it for once, instead of falling off the same cliff of temptation. But when JJ reached down for his hand, he took it.

Pope could have easily pulled himself out of the water onto the side of the HMS Pogue—he’d done it more times than he’d climbed into his own bed, for fuck’s sake. But instead, he curled his knees toward his chest and set his feet on the very edge of the Pogue, and let JJ haul him all the way up in their favorite gymnastic pull that sent Pope flying into the air, then onto the boat. Normally JJ would duck out of the way at the last moment, sending Pope sailing like a Pope-shaped-cannonball right at whichever of their friends he wanted to taunt. But today, he didn’t step aside. Pope hit him right in the chest and they went down in a huff of air and a tangle of arms and legs.

“Fuck, did you break the fishing pole?” John B yelped. “That was my dad’s pole! Stop messing around, guys.”

Pope shoved away from JJ’s warm chest, frantic that the effect of the cold swim was going to wear off too soon, or that the other two were going to see how different things were the second they saw them together. Touching.

“Easy,” JJ chuckled, catching an elbow in the face as Pope scrambled to get up. “I don’t have that many herpes, jeez.”

John B shoved into the middle of them, grabbing up the fishing pole JJ had dropped and examining it for cracks.

“Seriously,” Kie said. “You’ve been weird with a side order of twitchy as hell today, Pope. Next week’s midterms are _not_ that big of a deal, okay? I’ll study with you later, if you want.”

“Nah, I’m gonna do it,” JJ said. “You get off at eight, right?” He resettled his hat on his head, his eyes dancing as he said the words “get off”.

“Uh…” Pope sputtered, even though his shift did end at eight. “Yes, um, yeah. You’re coming over? I mean, right, I knew you were coming over. I made all those flashcards and you were going to help me. Study. That’s what you were going to help me with.”

Kie’s eyes narrowed. “Pope, if you’re smoking again, you know you can do it in front of all of us, right? Like, we all fucking smoke. It’s cool if you don’t, but I know you liked it that one time. If you wanted to smoke now and again, we’d kind of be the last to judge you for it.”

“I’m not smoking pot,” he said, then realized that would have been a great cover. “I mean, so what if I am? Not saying I am, but if I did, so what?”

Kie blinked, slowly. “That’s what I said.”

“Right. Good.”

“So like, if you’re just sneaking around to smoke with JJ,” she said, even more slowly in case he wasn’t getting it, “because you have social anxiety or something, then I’m just telling you that you don’t have to worry. I used to get really self conscious about how giggly I got when I first started smoking, but half the fun is letting loose. And seriously, if you haven’t seen Sarah high, I promise you. No one is more embarrassing than she is.”

“I think you mean adorable,” John B put in, back to normal now that his precious fishing pole was confirmed as uninjured. “Sarah gets all cuddly and laughs at my jokes. It’s great.”

“And now we all know how I became such a stoner.” JJ stole John B’s hat and ruffled his hair, plopping the cap on his own head, since Kie still had his hat. “It was the only way I could buy that John B was funny.”

“Ha ha,” John B said dryly. “Whose boat are we driving again? Because I’m pretty sure I can leave your ass right now and you can swim back to the Chateau.”

“I’m pretty sure I _have_ swum back to the Chateau from here.” JJ scanned the shore. “Oh yeah. Right from by that old canoe with the hole in the bottom. Meanwhile, you bitched out of our bet, crawled out at Lana’s dock, and walked the rest of the way.”

“Bitch is a misogynist term. If you use it in the context of being physically weak and therefore female, I’m going to show you what weak feels like, right across your _face_ ,” Kie said, and amidst the subsequent bickering, Pope was pretty sure his weirdness had been forgotten.

Except that when they got back to the dock, JJ was like, “Where did I leave my backpack? Pope, did I have my backpack when I came over here?” and insisted Pope walk him up to the Chateau, where JJ had dropped his backpack within the same five square feet he literally _always_ did.

“See, I told you that you’d—” Pope started. JJ caught him with a hand loose around his throat and hard against his collarbone. and slammed him into the wall of the Chateau, kissing him before he’d even caught his breath again.

Pope yelped and then melted, his toes tingling and his legs going soft as he slumped against the wall. JJ didn’t lick or even suck when he kissed. He used his tongue like a weapon, hard and ruthless. Pope wasn’t sure that’s how you were even supposed to do it but he fucking _loved_ it. JJ leaned into the kiss with his whole body, rearing close and rubbing taut across all Pope’s too-sensitive skin and the sudden ridge behind his fly, then gripping his ass with wiry fingers.

“Fuck,” Pope stuttered when he let JJ go, panting, then glancing all around as if their friends could see through walls to have witnessed all of that. He was so hard it hurt and he wondered if there was any excuse he could use to disappear into John B’s bathroom long enough to finish himself off. That was probably super uncool, jerking off in your friend’s bathroom. The fact that he’d had to do it before, quick and hard under the cover of taking a shower, was probably all the more indication that he should have realized he was gay earlier. Or bi. Or pan. Fuck.

Pope shoved a shaking hand over his hair and JJ smiled. Just a little, at the corner of his mouth. “You know I’ll tell them whenever you want. They’re gonna find out anyway, and you’re being weird as fuck. Kie’s gonna figure it out in about another twenty seconds.”

“I—” Pope started to explain about Urban Dictionary, and how it was more the him-and-JJ term he wasn’t sure how to define to their friends, not the sexual-orientation term. He was pretty sure they didn’t care what that one ended up being, but they all would be very affected by what the first term ended up being. Before he could start in on that topic, Kie called for JJ from the front yard. Pope jumped back as if two feet apart wouldn’t be enough to keep her from being able to tell that there was _something_ there.

The kind of invisible something that locked him hard into JJ, even as JJ was “keeping it open” and somehow, also, Pope already “had” him.

JJ took another step closer and caught Pope’s hand. “Don’t be weird,” he said. “Not about me.”

Pope’s breath stopped in his throat, every molecule pausing, and then he gripped back. Hard, like JJ held onto him in the midst of a panic attack. “Okay,” he said, and just like that, he could speak again.

Maybe he did know after all, what it meant that he already had JJ. Because this wasn’t somebody he’d been dating and stuttering over for five minutes. This was _JJ_ , whose hand steadied him after he’d wrecked his scholarship and an entire barn. Who helped him sink a boat, and took his place in prison, and the broken ribs that earned JJ from his father. Who stole from a dangerous drug dealer for Pope, and lied and told a pretty girl in the elevator at the eighth grade field trip that it had been JJ who farted, not Pope.

“Okay,” Pope said, and he smiled.

That made JJ smile, too, and he whisked Pope the quick Pogue handshake before he let him go. “See you tonight.”

JJ shouldered his backpack and hopped over the porch stairs with one of those effortless movements that Pope had always watched. Calculating trajectory and launch point and landing, thinking he was trying to recreate it so he could do it. But he’d rarely tried, he’d realized now. And he didn’t need to. He already had JJ, always had, in a way. He didn’t need to be _like_ JJ. Because JJ liked him, weird Pope, talking-about-dead-bodies Pope, surfing-Pope, even kissing-boys-Pope. JJ liked all the versions of him.

“I’m going to miss the ferry because of you, asshole,” Kiara said to JJ as he passed, still wearing John B’s stolen hat backwards on his head. Kie took JJ’s off her head and frisbee’ed it towards where John B was squinting against the sun as he tied up the HMS Pogue. “Surf before school?” she yelled to him and he waved her a quick “hang loose” sign, grinning as he swiped up the hat and popped it onto his head.

Pope waved goodbye but she lingered for a second, studying him. Pope’s toes curled in his shoes and heat started to climb up his collar, erasing the ease that JJ’s kiss had spread through him.

“You know I’m here, right?” is all she said. “If you ever want to talk without the guys all bickering at us.”

He ducked a nod. “Yes. Sorry.”

“For what?” she said, just as he waved a hand, mumbling, “I don’t know, I just realized that didn’t make sense.” And then she just laughed and blew him a kiss, running to the Xterra where JJ was trying to climb into the driver’s seat, and swatting him back away from it.

“Wanna play Nintendo?” John B proposed, and Pope nodded, terrifically relieved to have a normal interaction where no one was scrutinizing him. Even if John B’s Nintendo was so old that it was basically a gray box chiseled out of stone, played on a TV so out of date it wasn’t even a flatscreen and didn’t get any channels.

They were flopped on the couch a minute later, punching the few buttons on the old controllers, when John B said, “Hey so…you and Kie?”

Pope jumped so hard he half-dropped the controller, then jammed it into his knuckles when he tried to catch it. “No! What? No! Why would you say that?”

John B shot him a sideways look and kept playing, leaving Pope’s Luigi in his hopping-Mario dust. “‘Cause the last time you were this jumpy, it was after she shot you down, and then kissed you, and I thought I was going to have to call the UN to mediate the whole mess when I got home.”

With his free hand, he reached for an already-open bag of Cheetos on the side table, and scrounged in them without looking until he came up with a stray Cheeto.

“Just so you know, man, I think she might have a thing for JJ.”

Pope’s brows shot up, and relief washed through him, because he was safe and John B was off the real scent entirely if he thought this was about Pope and Kie, or JJ and Kie. But a second later, he felt guilty for wanting to lie to his friend. All of this felt like something too private to show to anyone, but that was probably just their messed-up heteronormative culture in some way Kie would explain in a five-thousand word essay and JJ would sum up with a nod and the succinct conclusion, “Yup, fucked.”

“Actually, I’m the one with a thing for JJ,” Pope said.

“Yeah?” John B looked sideways at him, then considered. “Oh, yeah. Right.” He nodded. “That makes sense.” He paused the game. “He know?”

John B ripped open the bag of Cheetos, chasing down the last few turd-shaped orange crumbs while he waited for Pope’s answer.

“He knows. He kissed me, a couple of days ago. And then I kissed him back and then—we kissed,” Pope said. “A lot.” He cleared his throat. “Yeah, a lot.”

John B chuckled. “Sounds about right. You uh—” He stopped. “Doesn’t matter. That’s cool. You two better not ditch us all the time to have sex now. Sex is for after-surfing hours, as I was so frequently reminded when Sarah and I got back from the Bahamas.”

When John B hadn’t spent enough time with the Pogues, JJ had hidden all John B’s condoms, in his strange version of an intervention. Pope almost smiled at the memory, and then smiled all the way at the memory of JJ gripping his hand, in this same room earlier.

“Yes,” he said in answer to the question John B hadn’t finished asking. “We’re together now.”

John B looked up, then clapped him on the shoulder, smiling. “Hey. Damn. That’s kind of cool, man. I didn’t see it coming, the two of you—but wow, I kind of did. Because you two have always clicked differently than the rest of us. Easier, kinda.”

Pope nodded, trying not to smile so big that it’d be weird. He stuffed his hands down between his knees, squeezing them together and staring down at the controller he’d dropped. “We’re open, though. Or kind of. Anyway, I don’t really know if I’m bi or gay so he told me I should experiment but—” He’d been thinking about it nonstop but he hadn’t really thought about it in these terms. Now, it was so completely clear that it came right out of his mouth. “I don’t want to.”

John B busted out laughing at his bluntness, tossing his controller onto the side table and balling up the Cheeto bag and flicking it onto the floor. “Alright then.”

“No, what I mean is—” Pope backpedaled. “I do. I want to know. I feel really weird not knowing and I feel like I should _know_ , you know?”

“Yeah,” John B said. “But sexuality is a—what’s that Kie always says? A continuum. It’s not like black or white, yes or no. At least, not for most people. So I get how it could be confusing.”

“Was it for you? I mean, have you ever wondered if you’re—”

John B considered. “No, though.” He laughed. “Fuck, I just said all that but you’re right. I’ve never even thought about it. I mean, I kissed JJ back when we were kids and practicing, but that was disgusting and not even real kissing.”

“You kissed _JJ_?”

He gave Pope a look. “Don’t even get me started. Worst twenty seconds of my life. But no, I don’t think I’m probably much bi at all, if I had to guess.”

Pope was still stuck on how anybody could kiss JJ and not _like_ it. It was basically the wildest, freest kind of sexual, and fun, and JJ always seemed to know exactly what he was doing, even when he was doing it totally differently from the other times and—

“Earth to Pope,” John B said, waving a hand in front of his face. “What are you spacing out on, man? Nutrient cycles again?”

“No, sorry.” Pope made a mental note to get the John B kissing story out of JJ later. “I just wish I could get it over with, you know? The experimenting. So it could be just me and JJ and I could know what to tell people and stop worrying about it.”

“That’s kind of your answer, isn’t it? That you just want JJ?”

John B was smiling a little bit as he said it and Pope smacked him. “Don’t laugh, man.”

“I’m _not_ laughing at you,” John B protested immediately. “I’m…” Now he did laugh. “Fuck, I think I’m a romantic. Sarah’s going to make so much fun of me.” He gripped Pope’s shoulder. “I like you two together. The more I think about it, the more I…yeah. Oh, and the gay thing is cool, too,” he remembered. “I support you and all that stuff. Obviously.” He frowned. “You won’t tell Kie I fucked that part up, will you?”

Pope snorted. But a thought was growing in his head. Past all the scary whirl of possibilities of dating apps or maybe asking Tyler, who was the only other out of the closet gay guy on the island he could think of, but was also like twenty years older than him. “Hey, John B?”

“Yeah?” His friend was already turned away again, digging on the side table for any other forgotten snack remnants.

“Could I kiss…you? I mean, just for practice, because you’re a guy and I know you and you won’t maybe punch me, and you don’t have any of the sexually transmitted diseases that statistically are getting kind of common in our gener—”

“Sure, dude,” John B said, finding a single unwrapped Milk Dud on the side table and popping it into his mouth. “Wait, is that cheating? Should I text Sarah?” He paused, chewing his Milk Dud. “I think if I’m straight, it doesn’t make sense that it’s cheating. Except wait, does that make sense?”

“If it’s going to get you in trouble, it’s no big deal,” Pope said. “I don’t know why I even said it. I think I just want a shortcut, you know? Peek at the teacher’s book of answers.”

John B swallowed the Milk Dud and turned more toward Pope. “Nah, I think it’s fine. I’ll tell Sarah tonight. Or no, sorry. I’ll tell her whenever you’re ready to come out to her. Pretty sure she’ll be fine with it.” He pulled off JJ’s hat and combed his hair back, then put the hat on backwards so the brim wouldn’t hit Pope’s face. “Ready whenever, man.”

Pope took a breath, his gaze lingering on JJ’s red hat on John B’s head. This was a guy. He liked to kiss guys. Probably. He could kiss this guy.

“Wow, my heart is like…hammering. I mean, I want to know but I’m almost not ready to know, you know? With JJ, it just happened. I didn’t know it was coming and then it had just already… _happened_.” Pope exhaled the last word.

“I mean, maybe that’s a good sign,” John B offered. “Fast heartbeat is a sign you’re into it, right?”

“Or maybe going to throw up.”

“Yeah, please don’t throw up on me, though.”

“I won’t.” Pope shook out his hands, then pushed his fists against his knees. He was eighteen. A grown ass man. He knew how to kiss. Hell, he’d kissed more this week than he had in the whole of his life before. And that had all been with guys, just like this.

Well, one guy.

He took a hold of himself and lifted his hand, cupping John B’s jaw. John B held still, his brown eyes familiar and kind.

“Take your time, man. It’s cool.”

Pope nodded, leaned in slow. Remembered to close his eyes at the last second.

John B’s lips were a weird combination of squishy and immobile, and their noses were touching. Definitely touching. Did JJ’s nose touch when he kissed him? A second late, John B started to kiss him back, his lips moving just a little. Pope couldn’t remember how to move his mouth, but he did his best, trying to relax and see where this went. John B’s hand sprawled on his side, a light and familiar touch with his knot of friendship bracelets nudging Pope’s skin just the way JJ’s did. Sort of, anyway. They didn’t seem as comforting as they usually did. Thinner than JJ’s bracelets, or not as worn-soft maybe.

Obligingly, John B opened his mouth a little, offering tongue if Pope wanted to go there. His breath tasted like Cheetos. Pope pulled away.

“No, then?”

“No. Sorry. No offense, I mean you’re—”

“Not as hot as JJ?” John B’s eyes sparkled and Pope shoved him.

“Shut up.”

“You shut up,” John B said gamely, shoving his shoulder back. “You big queer.”

Pope gasped.

“Too soon?” John B looked worried for a second, then Pope launched himself at him with a grin and they ended up scuffling across the couch and falling onto the floor with a thump, a groan, and a laugh.

“You’re an asshole,” Pope said, picking himself up a minute later. “I’ve got to get to work.” He held out a hand and hauled John B up. His friend used the hand to pull him into a hug, slapping his back.

“Love you. And hey, I’m happy for you. You let me know when you’re ready to tell Kie. Or tell her you told her first, because there’s probably going to be waterworks if she finds out I knew before her. I’m cool lying if you think you can pull it off.”

“I probably can’t,” Pope admitted. “Let me think about how I want to do it, okay?”

“’Kay. You coming for surfing in the morning?”

“Depends on how much studying I get done tonight.”

“Oh, that’s right, your boyyyfriend is coming over,” John B sing-songed, flopping back onto the couch and resetting the ancient game to single player. He made smooching sounds and Pope stole JJ’s red cap off his head and smacked him with it.

“I’ll try to make it to surfing. And I’m taking this with me.”

It looked better on JJ anyway.

Pope left with a spring to his step. He hadn’t figured out anything, not really, but the sunlight seemed a little clearer with one less secret muddying things up between him and his best friends. Even so, he was going to have to buckle down and _actually_ experiment soon. With girls and boys.

But not, thank God, tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: If anyone wants the full story of JJ and John B practicing kissing on each other as kids, it’s contained in my fic The Birds and John B’s.


	3. Breaking & Entering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Thanks to @xoxolibro for her insightful beta work on this chapter and for putting a million text messages into the making of this fic. She has some very heart melting Jiara fic posted, and y'all should check it out immediately.

Pope hated homework.

This had not always been the case. He used to love getting to deep dive into his texts when there were no other students around to side-eye him. He could read the appendices, hop over to the supporting sources, google the parts the text glossed over that sounded interesting.

When he was alone, he didn’t have to pretend to be bored by books and interested in people.

But this week, with exams and his dad running him all over the island with deliveries, and studying until 2 or 3 a.m. just to fall asleep to a few hours of restless dreams about JJ’s hands…Pope didn’t have time to mess around with homework.

He’d only been alone with JJ twice since their first kiss and at this point, he hadn’t seen him in days. Okay, he’d _seen_ him. In class, and in the woods out back of school where JJ snuck to smoke and play blackjack with Nina Carlson, the reigning queen of the stoners. He’d seen the sly crinkles at the corners of JJ’s eyes when he glanced at Pope, the smile that tugged at his lips. But he hadn’t gotten to be alone with him for way too long.

Pope had changed his shirt like a thousand times this week, because he kept nervous-sweating his way through all of them. He’d even managed surfing one morning with the Pogues after a skimpy hour and twenty minutes of sleep, and the motivation for that might possibly have come from the idea of seeing JJ not wearing a shirt at all.

Mistake. The visual of sleek pecs, shark’s tooth necklace, and sharply flexing abs kept him down to forty-two minutes of sleep the next night, and the kind of chafed soreness under his boxers that he was acutely aware of every time he took a step the next day.

Judging by the smirking side-eye JJ gave his limping steps, his boyfriend was familiar with this predicament. 

Pope was starting to care a lot less about his grades. If he had to go two more days without being able to touch JJ, he was pretty sure he’d not only light his straight A’s on fire, but toss a Molotov in the server holding all his permanent records.

Today, he’d run three deliveries at the speed of nearly-combusting-boat-engine so he could steal an hour free to finally, finally see JJ, and now fucking _Kiara_ was here.

Not that he didn’t want to see Kie. She was one of his favorite people on earth, and could make him laugh even when his stomach was feeling like prime ulcer territory. But today? Today, the only people he wanted to see had scruffy blonde hair and thin, soft lips and a sweater model’s body hidden behind threadbare cargos and combat boots.

“You have a hundred million in gold coming to you,” Kiara was arguing as she perched on top of the crumbling stone wall alongside the road. “Explain to me again why we need to rob a junkyard?”

“It’s not a junkyard.” JJ flicked his Zippo impatiently, lighting a cigarette and drawing hard. “It’s Scrap Taylor’s work yard, and we’re not robbing anything because he’s dead. The will’s in probation and—”

“Probate,” Pope corrected automatically.

“Whatever. The point is, I think the hundred million in gold I don’t currently fucking have knows a thing or two about what shit in probate lawyer limbo looks like. Plus, Scrap’s daughter is some kind of hippie out in California. Last time she came to town, I gave her a lift from the ferry and she read my color wheel.” JJ shot Pope a look so disgruntled that Kiara started to giggle. “Told me I needed to wear more fucking _flamingo_ , you believe that?”

He did believe it, because she’d told Pope he should wear more cerulean. He’d googled the term and then Kiara had pointed out it was the color of his favorite shirt, so Pope was stuck with the uneasy sense that maybe there was more to Tiffy Taylor’s brand of hippie intuition than he’d like to believe.

JJ pointed his cigarette at Pope, a thick wisp of smoke curling from his mouth before he sucked it back in. Goosebumps rippled across Pope’s stomach and he wished he could rewind that moment and watch it again.

“Point is,” JJ said, “Scrap had a bigger inventory of parts than anybody on the island, and Tiffy’s not going to know a primo ’59 Starburst throttle from last week’s takeout trash. All that shit’s gonna go in a dumpster. If we had it, we could pop it up on eBay and be clearing four figures a week on the specialty part market, easy. So you with me?”

Kiara tilted her head, her hair blowing against the bare curve of her waist beneath her crop top. Pope looked away, because he was so sensitive right now that even the _hint_ of anything touching skin was basically enough to set him off. He ran the plan through his head again. Like most of JJ’s, it sounded nuts but was basically sound, as long as they didn’t get caught. But he couldn’t help but pipe up about the one inconsistency in the data.

“Technically, none of us have one hundred million in gold even after we win the case, because of Sarah’s share.”

Surprisingly, it had been JJ who demanded they cut Sarah in to a full share, once they heard about the truly death-defying shit she’d done to save John B when they’d been chasing the gold down in the Bahamas. Plus, she’d basically burned her family to the ground for John B, testifying in tears against both her brother and her dad.

“So like 90 mill, whatever,” JJ said.

“Eighty,” Pope said, “Minus legal fees and taxes and the melted bars John B spent in the Bahamas.”

“Again, _whatever_.” JJ was bouncing on the toes of his boots by now. “You guys in or not?”

Pope’s one free hour was down to fifty-three minutes and he did not want to spend them probably getting arrested for hopping the fence into Scrap Taylor’s workshop. Except the money from those basically-abandoned parts would make a big dent in JJ’s restitution, which was really Pope’s restitution.

“I’m in,” he said.

“If we get caught,” Kie said, “We should go with the explore-the-haunted-house-dare story again. Cops love that one, especially when Pope sells it all wide-eyed and scared.”

He bristled. “Um, I think nearly getting arrested for trespassing is enough to make anyone look scared and that’s perfectly legitimate.”

JJ laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. “Perfectly legitimate, oh yeah, definitely,” he teased, “especially when you jumped at that terrifying noise that turned out to be a squirrel. A _baby_ squirrel.” Except Pope wasn’t listening because JJ’s thumb was stroking a little at the back of Pope’s shoulder, and was he imagining it or were JJ’s fingers more gentle than usual? Warmer, too, so the heat of them melted right through his shirt.

“Shouldn’t we go at night?” Kie said. “Lower profile.”

“Higher profile,” Pope corrected. “Our flashlights can be seen from further away. In the daytime, the trees will camouflage us. The biggest risk will be if anyone drives by when we’re parked at the gate. We can’t get the parts out on foot, and if we’re going to do this, the lowest risk scenario is to break in once and get what we can, rather than making multiple break in attempts. Do it fast. In and out.”

He started to sweat. Why had he said it like that? The visual was a dead match for the action in his dream last night.

“I’ll go in the back way on my bike,” JJ said. “Ditch it in the woods and hop the fence, snip the bolt just in time for you two to swoosh inside.” He flicked his half-smoked cigarette on the ground. “Give me six minutes and then come around to the gate, got it?”

Kiara stomped on the cigarette, putting it out and then picking it up. “Seriously, you carried the whole cigarette here but it’s too much trouble to carry the butt with you? Do you know how long it takes to biodegrade a fiberglass filter, JJ?”

“That’s a Camel, cotton filter. Cotton’s biological, probably degrades fine.”

“Considering the state of your shirts, the data supports your hypothesis,” Pope teased, his mood lifting now that he had forty-nine minutes of JJ to look forward to, even without privacy. Well, forty-three minus the six he’d have to wait for JJ to drive his dirt bike through the woods to the back fence.

JJ snorted, throwing a glance up through his long, dusky eyelashes. “Yeah, you weren’t complaining about my shit being too old when you stole my jacket last week.”

Pope looked down, sucking in his lips against a smile. He’d stolen the jacket because the collar was ripped half off—fucking Kooks—and it was JJ’s only coat, so Pope had asked his mom if she could fix it. If he’d kept it for an extra couple of days because it smelled like JJ’s stolen cologne, so what? And if he’d lifted one of the smooth pebbles out of the right pocket, who would notice? JJ’s pockets were always full of things. Stolen and found, some that he needed, some that he just wanted to prove that he could take, and some seashells and stones that he just pocketed absently, because his fingers seemed to always want to be gripping something, rubbing to taste the texture.

Pope twitched in his pants.

He jumped toward Kiara’s SUV. “Okay, good plan! Yup, let’s get going. I have to be home for dinner by seven or my mom’s going to lock up the WIFI router again.”

“Chill, Pope,” Kiara said, following him. “You always act so suspicious, even when we’re _not_ breaking the law.”

“It’s good,” JJ said. “Pope’s twitchiness will sell the haunted barn story if we get caught. One look at him and the cops’ll believe we got the willies even in broad daylight.”

Pope flipped him off and JJ smirked, firing up his dirt bike and giving it a hard rev with a flick of his strong wrist. Pope’s eyes fell to where JJ’s hand encircled the thick handlebar, rings sitting masculine and easy on his graceful fingers…and then he blinked and stumbled as Kiara caught his arm and yanked him toward the Xterra.

“So,” she said. “Now that we’ve got a minute alone, you gonna tell me why you’re really jumping out of your skin? Because we all know JJ’s the one around here who is really afraid of ghosts.”

Pope’s heart throttled up, racing as hard as the sound of JJ’s disappearing dirt bike. He was the worst liar, and Kie was the best at spotting it.

“I’m not afraid of ghosts, and Scrap’s place isn’t haunted as far as I know anyway,” he said, searching for a truth. “I’m afraid of cops. I can’t even get misdemeanor trespassing this close to graduation, much less breaking and entering. But JJ…” He trailed off.

Kiara unlocked the Xterra with a beep and sighed as she got in. “You know you don’t _have_ to help pay his restitution, Pope. He chose to take that rap, you didn’t ask him to. And what good does it do for him to do that if you just get arrested again trying to help him pay off the last time?”

“Okay, so what are _you_ doing here if you think it’s such a bad idea and we’re probably going to get arrested?” Pope shot back, buckling his seat belt even though they were only driving like two hundred feet to Scrap Taylor’s gate.

On Psychology Weekly’s Top Ten Tips to Becoming a Better Liar, deflection was number eight.

“I don’t know.” Kiara tugged at one of the little braids JJ was always putting in her hair when he was bored.

Touching your skin or hair was one of Psychology Weekly’s clear tells that let people know you were lying.

“I guess I just miss…” she fumbled, her fingers thrumming against the steering wheel.

“The treasure hunt?”

“No, not exactly. Most of it was scary as hell. But I guess I just…we were such a unit back then, you know? All working on the same thing, always together. Seems like now, you’re always at work, John B’s always with Sarah, and JJ’s like, I don’t know, in his own little world lately.” She shook her head, hard. “Never mind, it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Pope said immediately, because nothing Kiara ever said was stupid, not in his book. But before he could sort out something comforting to say, his phone bleeped the end of his six minute no-JJ time out. “Time to go.”

Kie put the SUV in gear and true to his word, JJ was swinging the second half of the chain-link gate open just as they hit the turnoff to Scrap’s driveway. Their taillights were behind the fence and screened by the trees before a single car had gone by, and Pope hopped out, watching as JJ closed the gate and wrapped the snipped chain back around the bars so it looked undisturbed.

“I’ll take the northeast quadrant,” he said. “Pope, you go northwest. Kie, you get the south.”

“Why do I have to do the whole south?” Kiara complained. “Are you guys good for _anything_ except getting rid of leftovers?”

“You’re faster at identifying boat parts than we are,” JJ said.

Deflection couched in a compliment. Psychology Weekly’s number eight with a twist, and that was a perfect example of why _JJ_ didn’t have to look up how to lie on the internet. It wasn’t entirely true, either, because JJ could identify a part at twenty paces if it belonged to an expensive boat. Never mind that most of the boats he was used to working on were half-rusted marina castoffs. His part recognition went up in direct correlation to the price of the boat it belonged to, whereas Kiara’s stayed steady and consistent across the board, even for the weird German brands.

Kiara huffed in annoyance, but took off toward the south end of the yard. JJ pulled up the stretchy, bandanna-print scarf he used to cover his face during their heists. Pope winced. He should have packed a bandanna to cover his own face, in case there were closed circuit cameras they hadn’t noticed. JJ caught the look and pulled off his scarf, tossing it to Pope.

“You need it more than I do, Chief. All three of those merit scholarships probably require a clean juvenile record.”

Pope caught the face cover, squirming under the mixed glow of JJ’s having remembered how many scholarships he’d gotten, and the guilt of wanting to hide his own face at the expense of JJ’s.

He tossed the fabric back.

“We should start at the barn,” Pope said. “I bet he kept the most expensive parts locked up and under cover.”

“Good call.” JJ led the way, setting a pace that had Pope jogging to catch up. But when he veered toward the back of the barn, Pope frowned.

“Hey, I think the only entrance is up front. Are you going to break a window?”

Damaging buildings seemed…not cool. Tiffy could sell the land and buildings, even if she’d have no idea how to move the parts. Actually, maybe what they should do was offer to broker the parts for her for a cut of the proceeds, instead of stealing from her. It was her inheritance, after all, and Tiffy’d always been nice to him.

He followed JJ around the corner. “Hey, maybe we should—”

Hands caught him and slammed him up against the splintery wood. He gasped, and then JJ’s mouth came down on his and Pope could only whimper, all the pent up desire hitting him so fast that his head went light and spinny.

“Of course I’m not going to break a window,” JJ growled, pulling away for long enough to give Pope a hungry look. “You think this is about _boat parts_ , jackass?” He crushed his body against Pope’s, the hard line in his pants giving no doubt that Pope wasn’t the only one who’d been suffering from all the days of homework-mandated celibacy.

When JJ pulled away long enough to kiss his way down Pope’s neck and into his collar, an irregularity rose in Pope’s mind, hazy but still irritating. He could never ignore an inconsistency in the data.

“But why—” he mumbled, his words thick. “All this trouble? You could have given Kie some excuse so we could have snuck off and been really alone.”

“Kie needed a mission,” JJ said, and shoved a hand up under Pope’s shirt, gripping his side with eager, strong fingers. The edge of his thumb slipped under the elastic of Pope’s boxers and he nearly groaned with happiness. “She’s been even weirder lately than you. Think it’s”—JJ couldn’t seem to pause his kisses long enough to talk—“maybe graduation coming or something.”

“Ung,” Pope said, a pang stinging his chest at the thought that JJ had noticed too, the way Kiara seemed off-balance. He really needed to…think about that…or do something…brainstorm possible solutions.

JJ’s knee was shoving at the inside of his thigh and it felt really fucking good. He flipped their position, catching JJ between the hard wall and his body so he could _feel_ as much as he needed to.

“Damn, Chief.” JJ’s eyes flared, bright _bright_ blue. “Well, okay then.”

He liked that. Liked being the one to put that pleased edge of surprise in JJ’s face. He didn’t always want to be jogging to catch up when it came to sex stuff, so breathless and mind blown from whatever JJ was doing that he couldn’t ever manage to patch together a plan for how to blow JJ’s mind himself.

Right now, his cognitive processes were running in fits and starts, but he knew one thing for sure that JJ didn’t expect him to do. One thing he was sure—pretty sure anyway—that JJ would like.

He unzipped JJ’s shorts.

“Uh…” JJ said. “Uh, oh damn.”

Pope froze. “Too fast?”

“Do I _look_ like a chick?” JJ blinked at him. “Here, let me get the button for you.”

Pope laughed breathlessly, even though Kiara’s voice echoed in the back of his head, lecturing that JJ was holding a double standard that insisted that sex was something that women could only withhold or allow, not enjoy for their own sakes.

JJ’s shorts sagged as the button came open and Pope’s internal clock counted off only thirty-four minutes. Probably twelve before Kie came looking for them to report her progress. He needed way more than twelve minutes of JJ.

Pope kissed him, as softly as he had in Tuesday’s dream, and JJ’s breath stuttered out against his mouth, more uncertain than anything he’d said out loud, but still eager. Pope slipped his hand inside JJ’s boxers.

The other man was hard and smooth, and it was so fucking weird to touch a cock that was a different size and shape than his own. Pope’s head went light and unreal again and he sucked in air, trying to balance himself out.

Fists gripped his back, JJ’s hands clutching two handfuls of shirt and pinching a little skin in their haste. Pope’s legs clenched as the small pain darted through him like just more sensation, as sharp and undiluted as everything JJ made him feel.

He wrapped his fingers around JJ’s erection, coaching himself not to be all fumbly and nervous. This, at least, he knew how to do. But it was all different from this angle and what if JJ liked something different than what _he_ liked?

JJ’s head fell back against the barn with a thud. “Dude, um…” He was shaking, the fine trembling making its way into Pope’s body everywhere they were touching, like it was coming from within him, too.

“You don’t want to do it here?” Pope guessed. “Too hard? Not hard enough? I could—”

“I’m gonna come,” JJ said. “Fuck, I’m going to come really fast if you—I didn’t think you were going to—“ He gulped air. “Just pull away so I don’t come on you is what I’m saying. Kie’s gonna notice if you’ve got a wet spot that smells like the Boneyard on Sunday morning.”

Pope’s grip tightened. He was going to come? Already? Just from— Pope smiled, and it spread brighter, felt different than any other smile that had ever been on his face.

JJ’s eyes dilated. “Oh fuck, bro, don’t smile at me like that.”

Pope drew his fingers up, circling until his thumb found the sensitive ridge just below the head of JJ’s penis. “No?”

JJ started to pant. Something about that, the way he was so openly fucked up over this, made a deep ache squeeze in Pope’s chest and he wasn’t in a hurry anymore. He leaned into JJ, wondering if his weight felt comforting, the way it did when JJ did the same to him. He touched his forehead to JJ’s.

“I keep dreaming about you,” he said, his voice coming out husky.

“Yes, fuck.” JJ thrust into his hand. “Tell me all about that. Tell me what I was doing to you.”

_Loving me._

The truth rose in Pope’s mind, so big it felt like JJ might be able to see it somehow, and he kissed the other man to distract him before he could see Pope’s discomfort with the question.

JJ pulled away, cupping Pope’s jaw. “What was that? Was the dream not sex stuff?”

Pope laughed, and it squeaked a little painfully on the way out. “Oh, it was a lot of sex stuff.” He started stroking JJ’s cock, unable to help himself when it flexed against his grip. “I can’t stop,” he admitted raggedly. “I think about sex all the time now. Never used to.” It was not doing wonders for his midterm studying schedule.

JJ swallowed, opened his mouth. Flexed his jaw as it closed again. Then he pushed a kiss against Pope’s mouth, fast like an attack. “Me, too,” he blurted.

Why hadn’t he wanted to say that? JJ thought about sex all the time, even before. Or talked about it, anyway. But it looked like having it be about Pope was too personal—close enough that he almost lied about it, then stopped himself.

Pope spoke fluent JJ, and this stuttered bunch of movements translated into a wringing out of his heart that hurt so much that the only way he could deal with it was to take it out on JJ’s mouth, kissing the other man harder and deeper than he’d dared to before. More tongue, even a little biting.

JJ groaned, the vibration of it spurring him on and Pope couldn’t stop touching him, shoving his boxers away so JJ was bare and Pope could feel every part of the other man’s—

“Well, _that’s_ not the exploration of the northwest quadrant that I was expecting.”

Pope bolted back, saw Kiara standing at the edge of the barn with her eyes conspicuously averted. He dropped JJ’s cock and the other man jerked up his boxers, muttering a curse. Pope was filled with a rush of protective rage, jumping in front of him.

“What the hell, Kie?” Pope barked. “Can’t you knock?”

She gave him an odd look. “We’re, um, outside.”

“Right.” He blinked, trying to get a thought through the haze of his head. “Um.”

“I’m a total asshole for interrupting you guys in the middle,” Kiara said. “I’ll meet you at the car when you’re done. No rush, I’ve got games on my phone.”

“Kie—” JJ started, and she waved a hand, her eyes sliding away from his.

“No worries.”

He took a step after her as she disappeared around the corner of the barn. “Fuck,” he muttered, fumbling for his shorts but missing at first because he was still looking after her.

Pope froze, his eyes flicking between JJ and where Kie had disappeared. “Do you think she’s going to be…mad?” He struggled to decode this latest, unexpectedly complex JJ reaction.

“Nah.” JJ said abruptly. “She’ll be—not mad.” He buttoned his shorts, turned back to Pope, and pulled him into his chest, holding him for a second.

Pope shifted, uncertain what kind of hug this was. Was JJ upset at them being found out? He didn’t sound embarrassed, but he sounded—something. Was this a let’s-finish-this-later hug?

Because Pope had a lot of thoughts about Kiara knowing about them, but his body really wanted its last twenty-two minutes of everything they’d been doing, and he didn’t want to leave JJ hanging when he knew the throbbing, explosive power of that kind of pleasure building in you and…

JJ kissed his neck, nipped at his ear. “You wanna stop? She said she had games on her phone.”

Pope laughed, almost hysterically, because oh god, how fucked up was all this and was this going to be okay? With Kiara or John B or Jesus, even JJ now that other people were involved and…but damn he really didn’t want to stop.

Pope trailed fingers over the still-open fly of JJ’s shorts. “Do you want me to…”

JJ thrust into his hand, his thigh muscles visibly twitching. “I want you to anything the fuck you want. Especially that.”

Pope’s hand dipped down below elastic and he took JJ in his hand again, their eyes coming together in an unexpected lock. This was worth it, he realized with a shiver. Whatever drama might come with their friends, whatever ways their lives might change now that people knew. Having to be the gay, nerdy black kid at school instead of just the nerdy black kid. Fuck it, he didn’t care.

This felt so right that anything other than this had to be wrong.

#

The black synthetic leather of JJ’s bike seat was hot against Kiara’s legs, and she had to shift so it would press against her shorts and not burn her thighs. Chain link clashed in the distance and she didn’t look up to know he was coming. She knew Pope had to be home for dinner and was waiting on her for a ride. She also knew if he was late, his mom would lock up the WIFI router because it was the only real way to punish Pope, and he’d have to scam the neighbor’s internet to do any more research, which always gave him the guilty sweats. But this was more important.

“Pope’s waiting for you at your car,” was all JJ said when he saw her, his shoulders tensed as if he might need to take a blow, his walk that cagey swagger that was all show. He flicked his hand. “Offa my bike, woman.”

She swung off the bike seat, studying him as he took her place and booted up the kickstand. When he still didn’t look at her, she held up a hand and wiggled it with a jangle of keys. “Looking for these?”

JJ sighed. “Can we just not do this and say we did?”

Kiara tucked the keys in her pocket. He booted down the kickstand and crossed his arms, still astride the bike. Looking bored, and yet still not looking _at_ her.

She approached, watching his body language, which was all reading _not today_ in terms of JJ’s always unpredictable response to being touched. She laid a hand on his motorcycle instead, gently.

It felt impossible to force any words into the tense silence between them, and in her mind flashed his thrusting, hard cock gripped tightly in Pope’s hand. The way his head had leaned against the barn and hair had fallen back, the blissed out softness in his expression like he was finally, finally okay.

“I love you,” she said through a scratchy throat, giving him the truth his body language was telling her he wasn’t ready for. “You know I love you. Gay, straight, trans, non-binary… You’re okay. Whoever you are, that’s so okay. Pogues don’t need secrets from other Pogues.”

He rolled his eyes, scoffing a little, but the silence was less barbed than it had been. “Okay Mom, are you done lecturing?”

His fake swagger was easing into his normal confidence again, she could tell. Like whatever bomb he’d been braced for hadn’t gone off. She wasn’t sure what it had been, because everybody on the island with eyes or ears knew she was an ally. But now that he was less bitey and more regular-JJ, she forged on.

“I am not,” she said crisply. “You and Pope—are you a hook up thing or a boyfriend thing? Don’t you go messing with his heart, JJ Maybank. He’s not a horn dog like you.”

JJ snorted. “You might be surprised. Late starters sometimes make up a lot of ground once they get going. Anyway, you should go find him. This is all new to him. He might actually need the mama bear talk.” He reached for his keys and she held them out of his reach, wanting to say more but not sure what. She wished she could hug him, but it was clear that would just make him more uncomfortable in this moment, that it would be more for her than him.

Besides, there was no logical reason that it should feel like this was her last chance to hold him.

“We good?” she said. “Are you going to be weird with me now that I’ve seen your dick in Pope’s hand?”

He smirked, cutting a glance her way. “No weirder than normal.”

His eyes finally coming back to hers felt like a kind of truce, and she tossed him the keys. Then, before she could stop herself, she leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.

“Never fails,” he said, revving the engine. “Soon as you’re gay, the ladies come flocking.”

“JJ, that’s offensive,” she said, “and stereotypical, and—”

“What?” he said, revving his engine, and she hated how much he was like Pope right now, and then he grinned slyly at her and she couldn’t hate him for anything. “You’ll have to tell me tomorrow,” he called back. “When we come back for all those boat parts we missed today.”

He took off with a spray of dirt and she wouldn’t let herself look after him.

She scaled the fence, trying not to think about how long had elapsed after she saw them and when JJ came out. Had they kept going, finished what they started? Or talked about what had happened, her walking in on them?

What had they said that she would never hear, that was just between them?

Kiara moved quickly across the yard, heading toward the Xterra without bothering to unchain the gate. They should talk here, where it was private and they couldn’t be interrupted. She’d known JJ would be the more bulletproof of the two—all he ever needed to know was that his friends wouldn’t leave him, and he could handle any other danger or challenge the world could throw at him. He’d never ask, but she knew what he needed.

But Pope, he was more uncertain, easier to hurt. Like JJ said, it was Pope who’d need her now.

Though neither of them were openly out, or even had mentioned anything about questioning their sexuality, at least not to her. She couldn’t help but wonder who had known longer, who had initiated whatever was going on between them. How long it had been going on, without her knowing.

Her breath hitched in her throat like she was going to cry, and she had to stop with her hand on the door handle of her Xterra and take a breath.

“This isn’t about you and your emotions,” she muttered to herself. “Get it together, Kie.”

She opened the door and Pope was in the passenger seat, hunched forward with his knuckles grinding together as he wrung his hands.

“I’m not leaving him,” he said before she even closed the door. “I know there’s no Pogue-on-Pogue macking and I totally get why. The weirdness after you and I kissed and when John B took his shot with you…I understand the stakes. And right now, before our last summer together and we all split up into the world—”

She lost the whole rest of his sentence to the crack of pain deep in the center of her that took her breath away. Her fingers stuttered on the door handle and she almost closed her door on her foot.

“But I don’t care,” Pope was going on. “I don’t fucking care, Kie, okay? And I know what you’re going to say, but I’ll take _care_ of him. I know I fumble and fuck up and make everybody uncomfortable, but I’ll be better. I’ll learn to be better, and I’ll do this right with him, and you’ll see. It’ll all be okay and it won’t affect anything and the Pogues will be okay and—”

“Whoa, whoa.” She held up her hands. “Slow down. You thought I was going to demand you break up with JJ?”

“I mean, we’re leaving it open anyway, so I can figure some things out, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not serious about each other, so I don’t want you to think that. It’s a hell of a lot more than a little macking.” He gulped down a big breath, looked at her more squarely. “And I’m not going to. Leave him. Whatever we are, it’s _ours_ , okay? And I’m not giving it up. Not even for the Pogues.”

That pain slapped through her again and she forgot to answer. Dammit, she was fucking this up. She was the worst ally ever, the worst friend ever.

She reached for Pope, touched his shaking wrist. “I would never ask you to give up something that made you happy.”

Tears hit his eyes. So fast she could see the shine of them slick down as they appeared. His chin lifted and he blinked hard.

“Pope…” she said, so softly. “I didn’t know. How can I be there for you? Tell me what I can do.”

“Oh.” He looked away out the window, blinking fast, and the second “Oh” slid out of him like a breath. “God, Kie, everything’s been so weird. And confusing and it happened so fast and _JJ_ —I didn’t even know I was, I didn’t even _think_ , and then he kissed me just a little and I lost my fucking mind and everything changed and I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t know if I’m gay or bi or if JJ is just basically an exception to everything. Because it feels like my body doesn’t even care about anything but him, and I can’t concentrate, and he says I should experiment, but google says—”

“Okay, breathe, Pope…” But now that she’d said the word “breathe,” he was starting to hyperventilate.

She had to climb right over the center console and into his lap, wrapping him in her arms and squeezing as hard as she could. Like she could hold all of them together through everything that had happened and all the years to come, just by gripping him now.

“I’m here,” she told him. “I love you, and we’re going to figure all that stuff out. We’ve got time, and everything you’re feeling is normal and okay, and I swear it’s all going to be all right.”

“I know you have to say all that, but Kie, I really think from what I’ve seen that my experiences don’t fit a known data pattern for—”

“You don’t have to be a known data pattern,” she interrupted, squeezing him harder. “Your data is better than everybody else’s fucking data any day of the week.”

He laughed shakily. “You just sounded so much like JJ.” He hugged her back. “God, Kie, I don’t want to fuck this up. I should have been practicing. All this time, I should have been practicing with other people, because I don’t want to be such a mess for JJ.”

She lay her head down, pressing her cheek to his hair, her heart feeling too big and skinned open when she remembered the way his free hand had lain along JJ’s jaw when she saw them together. A little softer than he touched the rest of the world, and familiar, like they’d already touched each other in secret enough that their bodies were easier with each other.

“You’re already just right, Pope,” she whispered. “For JJ, you’re just right. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before because it’s so obvious now.”

She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that wanted to leak out. She was just glad they’d found each other, that was all. Nobody had ever been able to match the easy rapport between Pope and JJ. The way they seemed like utterly different people but when they were together, they’d always fit like two pieces of a puzzle you found in separate rooms and immediately knew belonged to the same whole. It was better, honestly, than any of the secret thoughts she’d had about maybe if someday…

This was better, for JJ. And that’s what mattered.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered to Pope through the tightness of her throttling throat and her confused heart that insisted on feeling like it was breaking. Nothing was ending. They were embarking on their adult lives and moving on to new relationships and that was good, right? “I promise everything’s going to be okay.”


	4. Selfie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Thanks go to @xoxolibro for her lovely beta work on this chapter and the inspiring Instagram shots of Jonathan Daviss. Very good for the creativity.

“It cannot be this hard to take a selfie,” Pope said.

“Incorrect.” Kiara changed angle again, snapping him from higher up. “It is basically impossible to take a good selfie, but that’s what people expect on dating apps and we’re trying to make you fit in, so it has to look good, but also look like a selfie. Tilt a little for the light.”

She touched his jaw, adjusting it, and the next pic she got had big, mournful eyes. Which was heart-tugging, but not really the sex-me-up vibe they were going for.

“What if someone from school sees this? I’m not really sure I want my coming out to be via Grindr profile pic.” He grimaced.

“We could do pics with mostly just your chest.” She flicked open a few buttons on his shirt, eyed him critically. “It’d definitely get you the clicks, and the idea is not to give the impression you want anything serious, right?”

“No, nope, no fucking way, don’t want these guys thinking I’m going to fall for them. Or see them again.”

Kiara had to smile at his emphatic denials. “Hence using Grindr instead of one of the many other options. Chest or no chest?”

Pope looked a little green. He clutched the edges of his shirt. “Um, chest? I guess?”

Kiara lowered the phone. “Sweetie, can I say again—”

“I know I don’t have to do this, I just need to get it over with and this is the fastest way.”

“But does it need to be the fastest though—”

“Kie.” He stared her down. “I can’t stand not knowing every answer on a test, even if I’ve already got the highest grade in the class. What makes you think I can just hang around not knowing even who I _am_ anymore?”

She fought the urge to hug him and lock him away in his house for his own good. Instead, she sighed. “Okay, well in that case, an open button-front and bare chest pic is going to be the fastest way to the promised land. I’m thinking bold solid colors.”

“What’s wrong with this one?” He glanced down at his shirt.

“Um, is the plaid not self-explanatory?” She leafed through his hangers. “Plaid doesn’t say fuck me unless you’ve got lumberjack fantasies and the beard to fill them out, and I love you, Pope, but your facial hair attempts are weak.”

He unbuttoned the rest of the shirt and pulled it off. “I feel like if I’m gay enough to be getting dressed for a Grindr profile pic, I should be gay enough to know the right shirt on my own.”

“Are you seriously stereotyping _yourself_ right now?” Kiara glared at him over her shoulder, then pulled out a dark red button down with short sleeves. “Jeans, not shorts please.”

“At least turn around,” he mumbled, looking all blushy even though his boxers were barely shorter than the swim trunks she’d seen him in a billion times. She turned to his closet, selecting his darkest wash set of jeans and passing them back over her shoulder.

He took them out of her hand and she turned after she heard the zipper. And goodness, that chest of his really was going to get some clicks. _Somebody_ had been taking out their pent up angst on the free weights in the school’s mildewed basement.

“I don’t know, Kie. I just…I don’t feel like any of the gay guys I’ve seen on TV and I only know one on the island. Maybe that means I’m bi.”

She cupped his cheek. “Pope, you asshole, listen to me. You’re perfect. You don’t have to like fashion to like boys.” She finally gave in to her urge and hugged him, holding him safe into her chest for as long as she thought she could get away with before it’d be weird, then pushed him away with a big, determined smile. “So what’s our plan, plan-man?”

He stuck his arm in the shirt while she perched on his desk. There was a container of lighter fluid on the corner and she glanced away from it, because of course this is where JJ would come to fill up the Zippo he loved so much he’d scratched his name into it. Not that she cared where he did that. She wasn’t avoiding JJ. Hell, she’d seen him just yesterday, her and him and John B all crammed in under the sink at the Chateau, trying to figure out why water kept shooting out of the handle of the kitchen sprayer instead of out of the faucet.

It just felt like they’d been avoiding each other because they hadn’t _really_ talked since she stole his motorcycle keys. Which was his choice, not hers. He knew she was always here if he needed her. It was fine. He was probably just wrapped up in Pope, like anybody did when they were in the first blush of the honeymoon phase.

“For girls,” Pope was saying, “I can just go to the Boneyard. There’s plenty of new girls there who don’t know I’m the weird science fact kid. I can just wear whatever shirt you pick for me, show up and—”

“Not talk about dead bodies,” they said in unison.

He wrinkled his nose at her. “Yes, I know, we’ve had that conversation several times. But you also told me to be myself and sometimes the conversation lags and it’s really hard to ‘be myself’ without _accidentally_ sometimes actually being myself.”

Guilt tugged at her. “Pope, I didn’t mean…”

“Don’t, seriously. I’m fine.” He waved a hand. “Believe me when I say I don’t give a hint of a fuck about if those girls like me anymore. Not when I have JJ.”

Kiara felt strange. She sat down on the bed next to Pope. So much of the time lately, it was like there was a metal plate weighing down her chest. But now, when her friends all needed her so much and they had no one else who knew their secret—now was not the time to be worrying about herself.

“But before,” Pope said, “when I kissed girls, it was fine, I thought I liked it okay and now…”

“Now you feel like New Pope needs a fresh comparison.”

“Yeah. And with guys it’s even weirder because I feel like I’ve never noticed other guys in that way but then with JJ, it’s…” He cleared his throat. “Um, noticeable. Very extremely noticeable, my reaction. And that doesn’t make sense to me. But finding a guy to kiss on this island isn’t the easiest thing.”

Kie made a face. "Good point."

“I mean, there’s Tyler, but he’s kind of…old. There’s gotta be somebody at school or the Kook Academy that’s gay or bi, at least. Statistically, there has to be more than just me and JJ, so maybe we just haven’t heard they’re out yet.”

“Or maybe they’re _not_ out yet.”

“It’s just not a big island,” Pope fussed.

“Right.”

“So, Grindr,” he concluded.

She winced. “That name feels very on the nose today.”

“You’re not feeding me into anything, Kie. I’m doing it myself.” He reached for her phone. “Look, do you want me to take it myself?”

“No, I can do it. Here, get up.” She straightened his bedclothes, fluffed his pillows. “Lay back. Flex your abs. Can you flex your pecs a little too? Wow, it’s a good thing I don’t have your face in the frame, you look super constipated right now.”

He burst out laughing. “Fuck you.”

“Fuck you, too, buddy,” she said and snapped two more pictures when his belly was taut with laughter. “So you know,” she said, messing with her filter settings, “it’s totally up to you when you feel comfortable coming out and who you want to do it to, but I do think you should tell John B, as soon as you’re ready. It’s weird, him not knowing.”

Maybe if it wasn’t a secret from John B, JJ wouldn’t be so weird and close-mouthed around her all of a sudden. Usually, every thought he had just blurted right out of his mouth, even the sex ones. Well, especially the sex ones.

“Stop fidgeting.” Kie slapped at Pope’s hands. “It looks weird in pictures. Oh, damn.” She blinked at the last one in her camera roll. “Ladies and gentlemen, we definitely have a winner.” She squeezed her thighs together, ignoring the little tingle, and flipping the phone around so Pope could see. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking…kind of guilty, actually.

“What?” she asked warily.

“John B sort of knows.”

“You told John B before me?” She gaped, then snatched a Kleenex out of the box by the bed and threw it at him, because it was the nearest thing. “Since when is John B a better listener than me?”

“He’s not, he’s not!” Pope protested, holding up his hands to ward off more Kleenex attacks. “I just…sort of…well, I thought maybe I could skip all the Grindr stuff and…”

She squeaked, coming half off the bed. “DID YOU MACK ON JOHN B?”

“NO!” Pope whisper-shouted. “Shut up, Kie, what if my parents came home?”

“But did you—did he—” she sputtered.

“Noooo!” Pope half howled, his face totally hidden in his hands now. “I mean, we kissed, yeah, okay, we kissed just for a second and it was terrible. WAIT.” He popped his face back up. “Was it super terrible when he kissed you? Does Sarah Cameron just have crappy weird taste because she’s been macking Kook douchebags her whole life?”

Kiara had to stop and think back. Way back, because it had been years at this point. “No, you know, it was actually kind of nice. Soft, and a little sweet.” She shook her head. “Not terrible. But I guess he might have been a kinda stiff with you, because I think he’s pretty straight.”

“He wasn’t awkward,” Pope said. “He was super cool about it, he just sucked at kissing.”

Kiara clapped her hands over her mouth, sputtering with laughter.

“Don’t you tell him I said that,” Pope warned, and Kiara just laughed harder. It felt good, like a giant had lifted the corner of the metal plate off her chest. But then it dropped into the pit of her belly that John B had known, had been helping Pope out. And if John B knew, Sarah had probably known like forty seconds later. And JJ…everybody but her. She stopped laughing.

No wonder her little friend group had felt more like a pair of couples lately. It was still a foursome, bound by secrets. It was just a foursome, and a secret, that hadn’t included her.

“You’re mad, aren’t you?” Pope groaned. “Shit, he told me not to tell you he knew first because it would hurt your feelings.”

“He _what_?” She jumped to her feet. “Oh, John B is so going to die.”

Pope caught her hand. “Kie, listen. It’s not that I wanted to tell him more than I wanted to tell you. It just came out because he said something, and I either had to flat out lie to him, or—I couldn’t lie.”

“You really can’t,” she agreed. “You and JJ got together eleven days ago, didn’t you?”

Pope’s eyes bulged. “How did you know that?”

“How much boat butt rash do you have from having wet trunks all the time?” she asked instead. “Dude, it’s not like we don’t know you get boners. Between you and JJ and John B, it’s like the redwood damn forest out on the beach sometimes.”

Pope choked.

“Breathe, sweetie,” she advised, rubbing his back. “I’m just saying.”

He glared at her. “You just said that to get back at me for telling John B first.”

“I said it because you’re going to grow gills if you swim any more,” she said. “I haven’t decided yet how to get back at you for telling John B first, but it’s probably going to involve mayonnaise. Maybe firecrackers.”

His face fell. “I wanted to tell you. It just seemed like there was a right way to do it, and I couldn’t think of what it was. There’s a lot of contradictory information on the internet and I’ve been building a spreadsheet—”

“You shouldn’t need a spreadsheet to tell your best friend the truth about yourself!” She stopped, swallowed her words, and said instead, “Okay, that was wrong. It’s your truth to give to whoever you want, whenever you’re ready. Nobody has any claim on your identity but you.”

He slumped a little more. “I liked it better when you were yelling at me.”

“I can do that, too.” She sat down on the bed, tugging at the bottom of her shorts. “Hey, Pope?” She wasn’t sure how it hadn’t occurred to her until now, but he was the one person who might actually be able to understand.

“Yeah?”

“How long have you known—I mean, before the kiss and stuff, did you have feelings for JJ? Or I mean, maybe you didn’t know they were _feelings_ feelings but looking back, I guess, maybe you might realize they could have been or—”

The doorknob rattled as the door tried to open and hit the lock. They both jumped off the bed like they’d been caught at something.

“Pope, stop jerking off!” JJ yelled through the door. “We both know your mom can pick this lock with her hairpin anyway.”

“Jesus, JJ!” Pope scrambled to open the door. “Keep it down. What if my mom was home?”

“I can’t believe you lock the door to jerk off even when your mom _isn’t_ home.” JJ strolled inside, then his steps glitched when he saw Kiara. “Whoa, plot twist.” He considered. “Wait, did you two lock the door to smoke? You have to open the south window, because if you use the east window, the breeze off the ocean just blows the smoke right back in.”

“Maybe we were both jerking off.” Kiara folded her arms and stared JJ down.

John B wasn’t here and all the secrets were out in the open. There was no reason for JJ to keep holding her at that arm’s length like she was some kind of damn stranger.

His jaw worked, his lip twitching. His eyes were clouded, and when he broke into a grin, it was empty in a way that ran uneasy goosebumps up her spine. “Hey, all the better. Can I watch?” He plopped down on the bed with a bounce, so familiar with the mattress he didn’t even have to hold back. He linked his hands behind his backward cap and smiled sunnily at her. She glared without knowing why.

“I thought you had work,” Pope said, and JJ’s eyes flicked to him and stuck. Right on the open front of his shirt. Kie had to admit that deep red really did look hot as hell on him, especially without his ever-present hat shielding his eyes and making his face look younger.

“Fuck _work_ ,” JJ said, with feeling. And without looking away from Pope’s chest. “What are you dressed up for?”

Kiara stiffened, stuffing her phone in her pocket like it was a murder weapon and looking anywhere but at JJ.

Pope grimaced. “Making a dating profile on Grindr.”

JJ laughed. “I swear, you’re the only eighteen-year-old dude on earth who makes _that_ face at the idea of macking on hot strangers. Can I see?” He swung his legs off the bed, reaching out.

Pope handed over his phone, where the picture-less profile was.

JJ grunted. “Yeah, delete that bio. Nobody has a bio that long, they’ll think you’re a schoolteacher or something.” He tossed Pope’s phone back to him and pulled his lighter out of his pocket, flicking it open and then closed again. “So when’s your first date? Do you need a fake ID? Because my cousin can get you one, no problem.” He made a framework with his fingers, squaring Pope’s face in it and talking just a little too fast. “Hello Sonny Richards from Omaha, Nebraska. Age: a cool twenty-two.”

Pope took the Zippo from him and carried it over to the desk, pulling it out of its case and flipping it over to fill it back up.

“I don’t need a fake ID. The internet says drinks are more of a hookup thing, and dinner’s more of a dating thing, so I’m just doing coffee. Bagels, if I want to get really wild.”

The sharp, combustible smell of lighter fluid filled the room between them.

Kiara’s chest hurt. “He hasn’t totally decided if he wants to hook up with anyone yet,” she said, watching JJ’s face. “It’s just an option, that’s all.”

JJ scoffed. “No offense, but you only say that because you’re a chick.”

“Oh, please. Don’t paint Pope with the broad brush of your misogynist narrative about how all men are sex crazed cavemen.”

“You guys,” Pope said. “Don’t fight. I’m tired, okay?”

“C’mere.” JJ pulled Pope down to the floor in front of him, digging his thumbs into Pope’s shoulders.

Kiara’s muscled ached just watching. JJ’s back massages were legendary around the Chateau. Like Kiara’s little braids, it was a thing they’d started him doing to keep him sitting still during movies and not making so much noise none of them could hear the dialogue. But he’d gotten actually kind of good at it. He always pushed too hard so it hurt a little at first, but by the time he was done, you were basically mush.

“Delete that shit if you want to,” JJ murmured, quiet enough Kiara wasn’t sure she was supposed to hear. “But don’t do it on my account. We’re cool.”

Pope was facing away from him, and couldn’t see the way JJ was chewing on the inside of his lip, working at it like it was sore. Kiara could, but it wasn’t any of her business.

“I’m uh, gonna leave you to it, then. Pope, I’ll mess with a couple of those pictures and send them over tonight, okay?”

“‘Kay.” His head was already starting to sag forward under JJ’s ministrations.

“Kie.” JJ’s voice stopped her in the doorway and for a second, she thought he might ask her to stay.

“Hmm?”

“Wanna take another swing at those boat engine parts in Scrap Taylor’s yard? Free money, just sitting around…”

Of course he just wanted a partner in crime. Literal crime, at that.

“Yeah, maybe.” She shrugged and slipped out before she had to look him in the face. She wasn’t avoiding him. It was just hard, that’s all, to be the third wheel seeing the way Pope relaxed when JJ came into the room. The way JJ walked a little less cagey, and his eyes had that almost-surprised spark to them every time they slid back to Pope. The way the air itself seemed to calm a degree or two when they were together.

And okay, it was maybe harder for her specifically, because she’d always had that little tug in her when it came to JJ. She’d blown him off without a second thought when he used to flirt with her and every other girl, because she hated that he didn’t see her as any different than them: just another bikini. Then at some point he’d just given up the flirting and she was one of the Pogues to him, which she liked better. But she’d always thought there might be something more between her and JJ than the others, someday when the time was right. It was just an intuition, wasn’t like she was pining away into her diary for him.

Now that he was all in for Pope, she knew she’d get over it. Because she loved, with a ferocity that startled her, that they had each other. She knew better than almost anyone how vulnerable both their hearts were, for all that Pope wore his on his sleeve and JJ hid his behind a swagger and a joke. She’d worried for years about how they’d get by when Pope was off alone at college and JJ was here on the island by himself when the rest of the Pogues scattered to schools or jobs or Peace Corps, in her case. JJ and Pope would need each other, to weather the years to come.

It was just…

When it had been her versus Sarah Cameron, JJ and Pope had been the ones who chose her without blinking. They’d both told John B—loudly, and often—how stupid he was for refusing to pick. But when they had each other to choose, she was just a distant afterthought.

And she really wished that being happy for them would cancel out how much that hurt.


	5. Steam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Three cheers for @xoxoLibro and making me choke with laughter while reading her beta comments on this chapter.

**Chapter 5: Steam**

The windowsill was grinding into the back of Pope’s neck, but the bed was soft under his body, and he wasn’t moving for anything. Because JJ was lying on his roof, his feet pointed toward the edge of the roof, but his head propped on the windowsill next to Pope’s.

JJ exhaled a cloud of vape smoke—nicotine today, not THC—and Pope watched it dissipate, drifting away until the blue of the sky behind it was almost painfully clear.

“JJ?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think our standards might just be fucked when it comes to women? And that’s why neither of us are sure if we’re bi or gay?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, I’ve kissed girls.” Pope rolled up on his elbow, the window sill biting even harder into his skin with the additional weight, but it was worth it because now he could see JJ’s whole face, the blue of his eyes even clearer than the sky Pope had been looking at before. “And you’ve done…” He waved a hand. “All the stuff you’ve done with girls. And it was fine, like it wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great, right?”

JJ smirked. “Is this you fishing for me to tell you that you’re better in bed than all those touron girls? Because it’s kind of cute.”

“You haven’t had sex with me,” Pope said. “So how could you even know if I was better?”

“Do you want me to have sex with you?” JJ’s eyes were sparkling now. “Because you don’t have to be all hinty about it, Chief. You can just ask.”

Pope was starting to feel all hot and itchy under his shirt. He laid back on the bed, looking up at the sky again, because that made it easier to think. “Stop distracting me. I was asking seriously, I’m not being jealous.”

“Yeah, most of it was fine, not horrible.” JJ paused. “Sometimes kinda fun, though. I mean, I got off, you know. Can you get off with a girl if you’re gay?” He took another drag off his vape pen. “Guess I should have googled that shit.”

Pope could not believe JJ hadn’t even googled that much. He’d googled more in the last two weeks than in the whole previous year of his life, and for an info-addict like him, that was _saying_ something.

JJ shifted his head so his temple rested against Pope’s, and it felt nice. Pope sank deeper into the bed, his chest relaxing in a way that made him realize he’d been tense before.

“Wait, what was the thing about our standards?” JJ asked. “What’s wrong with them, again?”

“Because of Kie,” Pope said. “I mean, Kiara’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.” He paused for a second, thinking. “And the coolest, actually. So what if I would be bi, but I feel more gay because all other women seem not so great when compared to Kie?”

JJ blew out a slow stream of smoke. “I don’t think it works like that, Chief.”

“Okay,” Pope relented, because despite his google storm, he still didn’t feel like he fully had a handle on how it _should_ work. “But honestly, have you ever seen another woman as hot as Kie?”

JJ paused this time, thinking it over. “No.”

“ _See_?”

“But it doesn’t make me immune to thinking other women are sexy. I just know they’re not going to be, like, _her_. They’re basically on another scale entirely. Doesn’t count.”

“But then why do I count?” Pope wanted to know. He twisted, propping his elbow on the sill so he could look down at JJ. “Why does it feel like…like it does when I kiss you?”

JJ’s eyes darkened and he flicked the vape pen aside, letting it hit the shingles and slide toward his knees as he cupped a hand behind Pope’s neck and pulled him down.

JJ’s lower lip slid between his and he couldn’t help but run his tongue along it. Kissing him deeper, that breathless, upward-spiraling feeling in his chest getting more intense until Pope had to pull away, panting. He dropped his head to JJ’s shoulder. “Fuck. Wow. You see what I mean?”

“Nope,” JJ said. “Better show me again.”

Pope poked him in the ribs, grinning into his shoulder. “Asshole. I’m already hard as hell. Again.”

“If you have an erection that lasts more than four hours,” JJ sing-songed, pulling himself to sitting. “Contact a physician.”

Pope rolled his eyes. “If it was only four hours a day, that would be an improvement.”

“I could help with that.” JJ reached in the window and tugged the sleeve of Pope’s tee shirt between two fingers. Which should not have been as sexy as it was. Which made Pope have to kiss him again.

Pope’s head started to whirl and he had to pull away again after only three kisses, adjusting himself through his shorts. “Well, that didn’t help at all.”

JJ laughed, his eyes shining, but he had to sit up and adjust himself, too, and that made a flush of pride run through Pope that he wasn’t entirely sure he should be enjoying.

“But, JJ,” he persisted. “That’s my point. It’s different with us, but Kie’s different from other girls. Don’t you think that means something?”

JJ squinted at him. “That she’s hot as fucking hell. Duh. What’s your point, again?”

“I…” Pope glanced down. He didn’t want JJ to take this the wrong way, but he didn’t have anyone else to talk to about it. John B would listen, but he wouldn’t get it because he didn’t see the _wow_ that happened when Pope kissed JJ. How it seemed like their bodies were speaking a whole different language than other people’s. Only JJ would understand that.

JJ pushed at his shoulder. “Dude, what? You’re making angsty-constipated face.”

Pope glared at him. “So romantic, thanks.”

“Oh what, I have to be romantic now that we’re together?” JJ’s eyebrows quirked, his cheekbones seeming even higher when he was on the verge of a smile. “Well, we’re fucked.”

Pope’s heart started beating faster at the word “together.”

_You’ve already got me._

This was his best friend, not just his boyfriend, and the whole reason they’d left things open was for Pope to be able to experiment and figure out his exact preferences. Which meant if he could tell anybody this, he could tell JJ. He sat back, his nerves settling as his eyes met JJ’s more directly. “The thing is, I kind of had a crush on Kie.”

“Uh, I know. I kind of watched her kiss you, remember?”

“Right, but so…” He paused, trying to think of how to explain it. “The websites, they all say you either know, or maybe sometimes you don’t know so clearly so you have to follow the clues. Who you think or fantasize about the most, your celebrity crushes, your real life crushes. And thinking back, I don’t think I’ve _had_ hardly any crushes, except this girl named Tina who was one of my closest friends when I was ten, before she moved. I remember thinking she was prettier than other girls, but how far does sexual attraction even go when you’re only ten? I don’t give a shit about celebrities. I never looked at a guy on the street and, I don’t know, popped wood because he was so hot, you know?”

“I do not know,” JJ said. “Because I definitely have done that. But you’re kind of…” He scratched his ear. “More intellectual. Less physical. So maybe if you met a scientist guy or something like that, you would have been full mast, who knows?”

He glanced away and Pope reached through the window, taking his hand. “Like I did when I wrestled with you?”

JJ glanced back, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Wait, what?”

“That’s the only time I ever caught myself watching another person, thinking they were hot,” Pope said. “Even getting hard, sometimes, yeah.” He shrugged, wishing he wasn’t so awkward. “It was only when I was watching you. And, well…” He took a breath. “Kie.”

JJ nodded. “Yeah, okay, fair enough. Like I said, hot as hell, that girl. We’ve pretty much all had a crush on her at one time or another. John B was full hearts-for-eyes until Sarah came along.”

Pope exhaled, the wash of relief confirming that part of him had really been worried about JJ getting jealous, or worse, being hurt.

“So if I can feel that way about Kiara,” Pope said, “it seems like I might be bi. Jury’s still out, but that’s the way I’m kind of leaning.”

“Okay.” JJ flipped his hand over so he could squeeze Pope’s fingers back. He was quiet for a minute and then he said, “So then…was it like it is with us? When you guys kissed a couple years ago?”

“Yeah, see, that’s the thing,” Pope said. “I don’t remember. I didn’t realize she was going to do it and it happened super fast. Then the storm happened and we thought John B was dead and we all were such a mess and could barely stand to look at each other for a while. So when she said we were better as friends, I didn’t even want to argue, even though I was way tied up in knots over her back then.”

JJ’s thumb stroked over the inside of Pope’s wrist, and he gazed off into the distance for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. So maybe bi.”

Pope wasn’t sure he liked how JJ wasn’t looking at him right now, even though his voice was chill and easy. He touched JJ’s chin with his free hand, leaning in. “But definitely gay.” He kissed him, softly.

JJ’s lips curved under his, tickling toward a smile. “How gay?”

“Way gay,” Pope breathed, and kissed him deeper, tugging at JJ’s shirt to draw him closer in the window. He could feel hard muscle through JJ’s shirt and he wanted more. And if he wanted more, JJ pretty much was always up for more, so he didn’t hesitate to slip his hand under JJ’s shirt, running his palm up his flexing abs. His thumb brushed JJ’s nipple and the resulting shiver made Pope smile into their kiss.

JJ tugged his shirt off over his head as he crawled in through the window, pushing Pope back on the bed. He went easily, his pulse thundering as JJ came down over the top of him.

“JJ…” His hands came up and cupped the other man’s neck, the heat and strong thrum of his pulse the best anchor against the growing ferocity of their kisses, their breath getting short and hot in the gasps they took in between.

His boyfriend grunted, his hand cupping Pope’s fly, giving him a deep squeeze that felt better than a whole week’s worth of homework, done ahead of schedule. Pope gasped, mesmerized by the fluttering in his chest and the deep, hard thrum at the base of his cock.

“JJ, I want to have sex.”

JJ choked, then started to laugh.

“What?” Pope scooted away back up the bed.

“I’m more than just a piece of meat, you know.” JJ’s eyes sparkled, his whole face shining like he hadn’t stopped smiling all month. “Performing on demand.”

Pope rolled his eyes, then squeezed them closed. “I hate you.”

JJ’s hand was still working him through his jeans, stroking long and slow. “So, hate sex then? I’m good with that.”

Pope’s eyes came back open. “Wait, so does that mean yes?”

JJ started laughing again. “Uh, no, it’s definitely a no. I would hate having sex with you. I can’t even believe you’d suggest it.” His fingers flicked open the button of Pope’s shorts and Pope’s hands fisted in the covers, fresh arousal flaring even as he scowled up at JJ.

“This is why people say you shouldn’t date your friends. It’s because your friends are probably assholes.”

“That, and they know too much about you. Like how that you can’t stand not knowing anything, so you want to do everything at once.” JJ tugged down Pope’s zipper, then rolled onto his side and propped his head up on an elbow, watching Pope as he stroked a hand down into his shorts, over his boxers.

Pope could not breathe. Which didn’t make sense because he could hear someone breathing very, very fast and he was pretty sure it wasn’t JJ.

“But they also know that you kind of freak out about stuff.” JJ leaned forward and dropped a kiss on his shoulder. “What if we start a little slow?” he whispered. “Just so you don’t totally panic attack on me.” He squeezed his cock. “I can still get you off, other ways. I just don’t want you to…you know. When we have sex the first time.” He brushed his cheek against Pope’s and it was soft and kind and _fuck_ , it was crazy how nobody else on earth knew how sweet JJ could be.

Pope could breathe again, but now he was having trouble swallowing. “JJ, I…”

It was way too early to say that. Even to a guy he’d known most of his life. Even if he’d told him he loved him a hundred times before they started dating. Instead he gripped the back of JJ’s neck and squeezed, their oldest and most private embrace.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “That sounds perfect.”

JJ tugged at the band of his boxers, waiting for Pope to nod before he slipped his hand inside. And then holy fuck, bare skin, bare hand, whoa _wow_.

“How about checking that blow job off the bucket list?” JJ murmured.

Pope’s whole body went rigid. Was he going to come? No, okay, he was okay. Aroused enough to cut glass, but still in control. “Um, yes. Do you mean you want to do it? Or you want me to do it first? Or…”

“Both?” JJ shrugged, trailing his knuckles lightly down the underside of Pope’s penis, barely skimming him and still leaving him awash in sensation. “I’m good with whatever doesn’t have you diving for the inhaler, Chief.”

“I’m not—it’s not that I’m scared,” Pope tried to explain, because it seemed like it was bothering JJ. “It’s just…a lot. And it feels so good, and then I worry that I’m going to lose it and embarrass myself, in one of about a hundred possible ways.”

JJ grinned, wolfishly. “I know. And I like most of the ways you might lose it.” He kissed Pope’s ear. “The hyperventilating, though, sometimes it freaks me out. Can’t always tell if you’re loving it or hating it.”

Pope nodded. “Okay, so what if I just push you away if I actually want you to stop? Would that work? If I—can’t breathe enough to talk. At the time.”

JJ nodded, his bracelets tickling Pope’s neck as his hand landed softly along his jaw. “Okay now though?”

Pope nodded very fast, hoping that would get JJ to kiss him again.

His boyfriend’s lips brushed over his, and all Pope could think about was blow jobs. Because wow, yes, holy hell _finally_. But then also he wanted to be able to do that for JJ, and that skill was not a thing he’d yet gotten to in all of his googling.

Plus, well, Pope wasn’t entirely sure he wanted a penis in his mouth.

If he was gay, shouldn’t he automatically like sucking dick? He made a mental note to google once JJ went home. At this point, all he had to do was type “I” and his computer popped up a dazzling array of options to complete the sentence:

Is it normal if…

Is it normal if…

Is it normal if…

JJ pulled back a little, his eyes hazy. “You okay? This a push-away kind of moment?”

Pope shook his head so fast their noses bumped. “No, I am all about your blow job idea. Best idea ever.”

“Great minds, and all.” JJ’s hand curled around the side of his neck, his thumb resting on Pope’s pulse. He murmured, very quietly, “I’ve got you, man. It’s just me. You don’t have to worry about looking stupid, okay?”

Pope’s hands squeezed down on JJ’s shoulders, his heart throbbing in his chest. Was it even possible to love someone this much? It actually, like, physically _hurt_.

JJ’s hands slipped into Pope’s boxers and he started to work them off. Pope whimpered, arching upward, and then the knob to his door jumped and the door hit the jam as someone tried to come in. His whole body went icy.

JJ jumped up as Heyward called, “Pope? Why the hell’s the door locked?”

“Dad? It’s locked? Uh, I didn’t realize I’d um…” Boxers pulled up, shorts buttoned, fading erection stuffed into the elastic of his waistband, shirt yanked down over the top. Where had JJ’s vape pen ended up? “Locked it,” he finished belatedly. “I didn’t realize I’d locked it. Hold on.”

JJ already had his shirt back on and was rummaging in his pockets for something, heading for the window.

“Pope?” His dad called again. “The hell you doing in there, boy? We don’t lock doors in this house. That’s for people who got shit to hide.”

“I must have bumped the knob.” He crossed the room and unlocked it. “I didn’t notice—”

“Bullshit!” Heyward grumped, and Pope blanched. Oh God, his dad was going to realize he had been in his room with JJ with the door _locked_ , and if he caught sight of either of their hard ons…he was definitely not ready to have that particular conversation with his dad. “Don’t you lie to me,” Heyward said. “Why you have that door locked?” His head came up and he sniffed. “JJ!”

Pope registered the scent of cigarette smoke a second later and whirled around. JJ was stubbing out a cigarette on the outside of the window, a pack of Camels clearly visible on Pope’s side table. He hadn’t even realized JJ had a pack with him. JJ smoked vape pens, for both nicotine and for THC when he could get the cartridges, but he also liked joints and real cigarettes, sometimes. But he’d never smoke standing right in Pope’s room—only out the south window, like always.

“JJ Maybank, what the hell you doing smoking in my house?” Heyward shouted. “I don’t care if you’re eighteen, you don’t go smoking inside a man’s house without permission.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. H,” JJ said. “Pope told me not to, but I just had a long day and I couldn’t wait for a smoke. I did open the window.”

“And don’t even tell me you didn’t know you weren’t supposed to,” Heyward started in. “Because you locked the damn door so I know good and well you knew what you were supposed to do, and you decided you didn’t feel like it.” He shook his finger at JJ. “You smarter than that, boy.”

“I dunno, Mr. H,” JJ said, shrugging. “Back at my place, we all smoke in the house.”

“Don’t you hide behind that ‘I’m a Maybank’ crap with me,” Heyward said. “I’ve seen you do it a thousand times if I’ve seen you do it once. You _choose_ to hide your bad behavior behind that name.” His voice shook a little as he crossed the room and put his hand on JJ’s shoulder. “You’re better than that, son, and I known you long enough to be sure of it.”

“Sorry, sir.” Now JJ’s shoulders were drooping in a way that didn’t look so feigned, and Pope felt like shit because his boyfriend had lit that cigarette to keep the blame off Pope for locking the door. Taking the heat for Pope, like he always did.

“It starts with doing the right thing with little things, like having the discipline not to smoke in the house,” Heyward said, shaking JJ a bit. “And it grows right on up to big things, like becoming a man you can be proud to be. A man who makes the Maybank name into something this island respects again.”

“Dad, take it easy, would you?” Pope said. “It was just a cigarette and he’s of age. You don’t have to make a big—”

“Boy, I know you did not just question my right to chew a child out for smoking in my house,” Heyward said, his voice rising. “I’ll thank you to keep your mouth shut or you’ll be grounded for a hell of a lot longer than you already gonna be grounded.”

“Grounded?” Pope jumped forward. He already barely saw JJ. He could not afford to get grounded right now.

“But he wasn’t the one smoking!” JJ protested. “You know Pope doesn’t smoke.”

“He was the one locking the door and lying to me about it.” Heyward pointed his finger in JJ’s face. “And we both know he wouldn’t even be doing that if it weren’t for you. You pull others down with you when you take the low road, son. You started my boy lying to me, and you know he’s better than that.”

“Yes, sir.” JJ’s jaw flexed, his face going expressionless. “He is better than that. And it won’t happen again on my account.”

“Dad, c’mon…” Pope tried to intervene and they both ignored him.

Heyward nodded. “See that it doesn’t.” He looked at Pope. “I got to go to work. You mow the grass, take out the trash, and polish the dining room floor with the good polish, and I’ll think about maybe not grounding you. You best open the other window, air this place out before your mama smells how you turned her house into an ashtray.”

“Yes, Dad.” Pope tried to hide his wave of jubilation at avoiding the grounding, and that Heyward wasn’t going to tell his mama. He could do the floor before his shift at work, the yard before bed if he turned the porch lights on to see by.

They listened to Heyward tromp down the steps, then the slam of the front door as he left.

Pope stuck his head out of the room to make sure he was gone, then came back.

“Sorry, man,” Pope said. “He just says that shit because he knows I’m a better guilt trip for you than anything else. I guess he wouldn’t be telling anybody how I’m better than that if he knew it was me that sunk Topper’s boat.” He laughed shakily and JJ glanced at him.

“He’s right. You are better than that. And I’m pretty much always the reason you lie about anything.”

Pope took a step forward. “Hey, you know the reason I haven’t come out to him yet has nothing to do with not being proud to be with you. You don’t think—”

JJ waved him off. “I wasn’t talking about the coming out stuff. I’d be scared shitless to come out to Heyward if he was my dad.” He laughed. “Actually, I’d be scared shitless to tell Heyward anything. He’s really good at the ass-chewing, right?”

“How do you think I got so good at following rules?”

JJ grinned, and Pope said, “Seriously, though, I need to tell him soon. It’s not like I think it’ll be bad—he’s been friends with Tyler for fifteen years, and Tyler brings his boyfriends to barbecues over here when he’s dating and everything. It’s just…I don’t know, a big deal. I don’t want to tell him before I know what to tell him. Like if I tell him I don’t know _what_ I am, I don’t want him thinking that means maybe I’m actually straight or something.”

“Dude, you don’t have explain to me,” JJ said. “I’m not all up my ass about any of that stuff. It’s cool. Anyway, so I was thinking I’ll grab the trash and start on the grass, if you wanna do the floor. I’ve never polished a floor, with the good polish or otherwise, so I’d probably fuck it up and your mom’d be mad.”

Pope blinked. He hadn’t even thought that JJ would help, when he was the one in trouble. But then, it was JJ who saved him so he wasn’t forced to out himself to his parents when he wasn’t ready. JJ who saved him when he was locked up in cuffs. JJ who whispered, _I’ve got you, man._

He reached for JJ and locked him into a hug, his arms shaking with how fiercely he was holding on. “Dammit, JJ, I lo—” Pope cut himself off and swallowed against a dry mouth, trying to make himself wait, not be so intense for once. “Hey, what if I gave _you_ a blow job?”

“What?” JJ twitched in his embrace. “Um, it’d be awesome, obviously. Are you—you down to do that, today?”

Pope nodded. He wanted to give JJ everything. All the gold, a big house, like a million orgasms. He wished he could gift JJ this huge feeling that seemed like it was expanding his chest right now and every ridiculous, tingly smile that had crossed his face since their first kiss. That _wow_ thing that happened every time they touched.

“I uh…” JJ shifted, swinging his head down to the side and sniffing. “Hey, do you mind if I hop in your shower? I’ve been sweating my balls off all day.”

“Of course, yeah. My towel’s on the back of the door.”

“Cool.” A crooked smile crossed JJ’s face. “I’ll do the lawn and the floor while you’re at work so you don’t get in trouble. Just show me how to do the polish stuff before you go.” He swung out into the hall, leaving Pope grinning like a crazy person, alone in his room.

A blow job. Every guy liked blow jobs. He should get really good at them, he bet that would make JJ happy. Even if he still wasn’t so sure about the whole dick-in-his-mouth thing. It would be fine. He’d get used to it, right? Girls got used to it.

Did he have time to google techniques? He glanced at his laptop, then realized he should have offered JJ a fresh towel. Maybe he wouldn’t want to use Pope’s towel, and he’d think that was gross.

Pope abandoned the laptop and got a towel out of the hall closet, knocking on the bathroom door.

“Yo!” 

“Can I come in?” Pope asked.

“What?” JJ yelled. “I can’t hear you, just open the door!”

Pope rolled his eyes at his own hesitation, and let himself in. “Hey, I brought you a towel in case you wanted a fresh one.”

“Hey, if you wanted a peep show, you could have just asked.” JJ ripped back the curtain, flashing miles of toned, tanned skin, going whiter where it was normally hidden by his shorts. Pope froze, his mouth going dry, but then the curtain rattled closed again, with JJ cackling behind it. “Next peek’s five bucks, these cheeks don’t come for cheap, hombre!”

Pope laughed, his competitive spirit rising. “You asshole.” He toed off his shoes and ripped off his shorts, dropping them with JJ’s before shedding his shirt and stepping into the shower. “Now you owe _me_ five bucks.”

“No way,” JJ said, his head under the shower as he washed soap out of his hair. “First one’s free. I gave you a sample, it’s only fair if…” He slicked water out of his eyes and stuttered to silent as soon as he blinked them open.

Pope froze, too. “What?” He looked down at himself.

“Damn,” JJ growled, pulling him in with a hand wrapped around the back of his neck, their foreheads touching and their whole bare bodies stroking together for the first time ever.

It was as if Pope could feel every inch of his skin individually, like it had gone a thousand times more sensitive in an instant and everything felt amazing. Even his scalp tingled, and so it took him a long moment to realize it wasn’t him who was shaking—it was JJ.

“Man, you do some crazy shit to me, you know that?” JJ whispered.

Pope smiled. Everything behind this shower curtain felt warm and safe and billowing with steam. JJ smelled like Pope’s shampoo and he wasn’t sure he’d ever been this happy all at once in his whole life. Pope slowly slid to his knees. JJ was already hard and Pope didn’t think about how he should do it. He just licked the water droplets off JJ’s tip because he wanted to. Ran his tongue down the length of him because the skin was silky and it was sexy as hell, how hard he was from just _standing_ naked in the shower together.

JJ didn’t moan, or make a dirty joke. He just gulped this tiny scrap of a breath that Pope barely heard. It was the quiet, JJ version of hyperventilating. But no one was pushing him away.

When he wrapped his hand around JJ’s cock, it was because he wanted to hold him, even while he pleasured him. When Pope slid JJ’s arousal into his mouth, it was because he loved the quiet sounds his boyfriend made. The way his thigh muscles quivered under Pope’s free palm.

It was because he wanted to make him feel good, feel loved. Feel like he could lose control and it wouldn’t be embarrassing, it would be sexy. He pressed deeper, testing, and gagged a little. He froze, and stole a glance upward, but JJ didn’t react, and didn’t seem grossed out by the unsexy sound. So the next time he nudged the back of his throat he didn’t stiffen, just relaxed a little more. He loved how _into_ this JJ was, and when the other man thrust against his mouth, Pope felt himself thicken in response. Oh damn. So this…this made so much sense all of a sudden. He ran his tongue up JJ’s length, chasing it with his hand and JJ stuttered a swear word, one hand slapping up against the tile and his other gripping Pope’s shoulder.

Pope moved faster, the rhythm settling into him like he’d always known it, and there was a hum deep in his chest that matched the eager thrum of his cock. Dammit, he liked this. Not just for JJ, but for himself. His hand slipped off JJ’s leg and descended to his own lap. He gave himself one experimental tug and JJ groaned.

“Oh my god, _Pope_.” He started shoving at Pope’s shoulder and Pope jerked back, not sure if he’d gone too fast or scraped him with his teeth, but then JJ’s fingers were digging into his shoulder and he’d grabbed his own cock and he was jerking himself to a hard finish while Pope watched.

He really, really liked watching.

JJ’s grip went slack on his shoulder and Pope rose, pulling the other man close. The water was still hot as it washed down their bodies and he was just-woke-up-from-sex-dream hard but somehow…peaceful. Like he never had to go anywhere or do anything else ever again and he’d be perfectly happy. He kissed JJ, just beneath his ear.

“Holy fuck,” JJ said. “How are you that good at that?” A little twitch-shudder ran through him, like an aftershock. “Why have I not dated any overachievers before?”

Pope laughed, shoving at him a little bit. “Shut up.”

The water was starting to run cold and JJ reached back to crank it off, getting a little fumbly as he tried to kiss Pope at the same time. He snapped back the curtain and tossed Pope the fresh, folded towel, grabbing Pope’s towel off the back of the door. “Your mom working until nine?”

“Uh-huh.”

JJ’s eyes gleamed and he grabbed Pope’s hand. “C’mon.” He pulled him, still dripping water, across the hall and into Pope’s bedroom, locking the door with a quick flick. “Totally doesn’t count as lying,” he said as he grabbed Pope up and tossed him onto the bed. “After you come out, even Heyward is gonna give me that one, I swear.”

“You think that.” Pope grinned, still bouncing with the landing and pleased beyond all reason that he apparently didn’t have to stop scuffling and wrestling with JJ now that they were dating. “But what you don’t realize is my father is going to be a lot happier to accept that I’m queer than he is to accept the idea that I might have sex before marriage.”

“Well, I’ve been making daddies unhappy for a long time,” JJ said, sighing gustily. “I guess I shouldn’t stop the good streak I’ve got going just because I finally found one I actually respect.”

Pope tilted his head, oddly touched at that. “Wait, you like my dad?”

But then JJ started to kiss his way down Pope’s chest and another question suddenly became far more urgent.

“Wait, are you going to—”

Then JJ’s lips closed around his cock and it slid into his hot, wet mouth and Pope’s brain short-circuited altogether. He couldn’t speak. He could _feel_. He was pretty sure he made noises, he ripped the sheets half off the mattress with his fisting hands, but he didn’t manage to form any of his thoughts into intelligible words, not for a very long time.

Long enough that when he could again, he and JJ were lying panting, side by side on the bed with a thin sheen of sweat drying on his skin. Pope blinked at the ceiling. “Oh. Whoa.”

The bed shook a little under JJ’s silent chuckle. “Do I get four stars on Yelp or five, Chief?”

“That felt like…the best thing you could ever feel.” He tried to move, and his muscles just twitched and went slack instead. “No wonder people love blow jobs.”

JJ started to laugh. “Fucking _right_?” He scooted over, his warm shoulder nudging Pope’s.

Pope took a breath, and it felt like he was filling up his chest with all the good feelings swirling around in the room. All the good things in the world. He rolled up to his elbow so he could see JJ’s face. His blue eyes were sleepy and hazy, his lips a little quirked because his laugh hadn’t entirely faded.

“I love you,” Pope said.

A shadow crossed JJ’s face and his eyes jerked to focus on Pope. “Wait, like you just started?”

Pope started to laugh because JJ looked so genuinely alarmed he couldn’t even help himself. “No, you idiot. I always loved you, but now it’s like, different. Bigger.”

JJ flopped back, relief washing across his features as he propped a hand behind his head. “Oh yeah, that.” He nudged Pope’s side with the back of his free hand. “I love you, too. I didn’t think that was a new thing we had to say.”

Pope shook his head, still laughing. He leaned down and kissed him. “Of course you didn’t.” He stroked his chest, the deep thump of JJ’s heart hitting his hand. “Of course you wouldn’t.”

It made perfect sense. Because for JJ, giving love was a constant. It was getting it that was always a surprise.


	6. Everyone's Favorite Pogue

Kiara loved the sea because it could be every color. She wrapped her arms around her bare knees, letting her hair fly loose and tickle her back over her bikini straps. Earlier, when she’d been surfing alone, the water had been a light blue, shading to a delicate green. At twilight, it had faded to a blue just deep enough to look like it had its own secrets.

Now, as sunset faded, it was a green so dark it was almost black. It looked cold, like something that could swallow you up until you’d never existed at all. Right now, that thought was more enticing than it had any right to be.

If they had already claimed the gold, she wouldn’t even really have to be here. She could quit high school, just take off traveling, seeing every color the sea could be from every different continent. But until the gold was a sure thing, her parents insisted that she still might need a high school diploma. They’d agreed to pay for Peace Corps and she’d scheduled her stint to start in fall, back when she hadn’t wanted to leave the Pogues until they _all_ left—Pope for college at Stanford and John B for wherever the hell he was going to end up.

No one had ever been able to picture JJ anywhere but Kildare Island, and before, that had always seemed like a comfort. Like whenever she came home to visit, he’d be there.

Now, she wished like crazy the gold was already theirs so she could leave tomorrow. It made her gut twist to think of being on a plane, lifting into the air away from all her boys. But that pain would only have to be endured once. Lately, every time she looked at one of them, she thought of how soon she’d have to leave them. Every time they did a flip into the water, or tussled over the last beer, or climbed a tree, she would think, “Is this the last time we do this together?”

It would be easier if she were just gone. No goodbyes. Just slipping out one morning and sending postcards back to let them know she was okay. They had their own lives, their own people. They’d miss her, sure, but they wouldn’t really notice. She wouldn’t leave a gap in their already-full lives.

Behind her, the noise of the party at the Boneyard was getting steadily louder, and the wind was starting to cool, air shifting as if the sinking sun was pulling it across the land and down beneath the horizon. She needed to go grab a hoodie out of the van. Her bikini was still damp from the swim she’d taken an hour ago, but moving would mean threading her way back through the crowd and she didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Fresh shouting and the crow of laughter reached her ears and she couldn’t help but look up. JJ and John B were horsing around a ways down the beach, swapping back and forth to see who could carry the other furthest, piggy-back style. It should have been a familiar sight but instead it was just another marker of how much everything had changed.

Pope was home studying, but this was still the first Boneyard kegger she could ever remember when JJ hadn’t flirted with…well, with anyone. A gloriously shiny-haired Latina in a jeweled bikini had even cajoled him into helping her with the tap on the keg, and all he’d done was pour her a beer and pass it off with an easy grin that even at half-dimple power had made the girl visibly swoon a little. Before he walked away.

It made sense. JJ was so single-mindedly loyal that she’d always known he’d only give his heart once, and that would be it.

Thank goodness it had been to Pope, who would love him back just as completely.

Kiara pulled her knees tighter to her chest.

JJ came dashing up the sand toward her, John B whooping and bouncing away on his back. “Giddiup!” he howled. “Mush, mush, Maybank! Is that all you got?”

They crashed, rolling right in front of her with a spray of sand that left her spitting.

“Who won?” They demanded in unison. JJ rolled onto his belly and blinked hazy eyes at her. “Did I get farther or did John B get farsher?” He poked out his tongue, eyes crossing as he looked down at it, then he tried again. “Fardder. FAR-ber. FARRRRther.”

She hadn’t been watching carefully, but she was pretty sure JJ had carried John B farthest before falling. “John B won,” she said. No sense in feeding that ego. It was like giving a toddler sugar—only trouble could come from it.

“Remarsh,” JJ demanded, flopping onto his back with arms stretched wide. His chest was bare, his shark’s tooth necklace hanging in that perfect gap below his collarbones. “Wait, I might throw up first.”

John B belched loudly. “Me, too. Fuck, that keg’s foarmy. Foamy. Fuck.”

“You kiss Sarah with that mouth?” Kie asked tartly, then flipped a hand. “Go on, you two. I’m trying to think. Go impregnate some poor, innocent touron or something.”

JJ rolled onto his stomach, army-crawling across the sand and flopping in her lap, knocking her knees down flat to make room for his head. He slung his arms around her waist, squeezing unevenly.

“Don’t be sad, Kie.”

Her heart jolted. “What? I’m not.”

John B rolled over, laying on his arm as he watched them and Kiara pretended not to notice.

“Alltime lately,” JJ slurred, then peered up at her with squinted, sunny-lashed eyes. “Whya sad, Kie?”

“Maybe it’s because you’re such a sloppy drunk,” she said sweetly, brushing the tangled hair back out of his face.

He laughed. “I’m a happy drunk. You love me drunk.”

“Sometimes. And sometimes you throw up on my new, super cute pink Converse.”

“Ugh pismo colored.” He shuddered. “Don’t talk about those.”

She crinkled her nose, then decoded “pismo” as drunk for “Pepto Bismol” which she supposed they had been. Before JJ threw up on them last summer. Which she supposed served her right for egging him on into winning a keg stand competition. It was just that she hadn’t been able to stand watching Rafe gloat when JJ was clearly so much better at keg stands.

“JOHN B!” JJ shouted without lifting his head. Kiara jumped, her hands rising to her ears.

“JJ, he’s four feet away, not four miles.”

“Mmmhmmf?” John B grunted, still breathing hard from their racing.

“Kie’s sad, John B,” JJ mumbled, his eyes slipping closed like he might doze off in her lap. She glanced away. How had she given herself away?

“Oh my _God_ , I’m fine. You’re just being a sentimental drunk, like you always are. Remember the night you got Pope all wound up talking about Old Yeller until you both cried?”

John B crawled over, laying on her other leg and hugging her around her waist. She squirmed under the weight of both of them, readjusting until she could sit more comfortably cross-legged. Judging by the way John B smelled, he was no more sober than JJ.

“Don’t be sad, Kie,” he said. “You’re everyone’s favorite Pogue.”

“Oh, yeah, okay.” She scoffed, laughing. “Whatever, Crazy.”

“You _are_. Ev’body knows that.” John B kicked at JJ’s foot. “It’s sure not this asshole.”

“Don’t lie, you know I’m your favorite, John B,” JJ huffed, squinching up his face and scratching his nose by rubbing it against Kiara’s hipbone. His hair was a wreck, all sand and tangles and falling into his eyes. John B’s was even worse, the waves going wild to curls with the humid sea air. They looked like a giant, fuzzy blond-brunette hairball in her lap, and a real laugh bubbled up out of her belly.

“You guys are like 40% bullshit, 60% hair.”

She started combing her fingers through JJ’s hair, softly working out the tangles. Partially because if she didn’t, he’d yank half of it out in the morning trying to tame it with John B’s old snaggle-toothed comb. And partially because if she left all the sand in, he’d fall asleep on the couch at the Chateau that way, and then all that sand would end up in the back of her shorts the next time she sat down on it.

“Play with _my_ hair,” John B shoved JJ’s head out of the way with his own, bulling his way in. JJ slapped at him, pouting.

“No, mine!”

“Boys, boys!” she yelped. “I have two hands. Settle down.” Their warm heads settled onto her legs again and she didn’t want to think about how nice it felt. How her belly didn’t feel empty for the first time lately. “I swear you’re basically a bunch of puppies, and just as poorly house trained,” she groused as she settled into stroking one Pogue’s hair with each hand. “Which reminds me, you have to stop peeing off the porch. The Chateau is starting to smell like a urinal.”

JJ resettled his arms around her waist, knocking John B’s away so he could hug her more closely. “There’s only one bathroom and five people! What do you want me to do, pee in the sink?”

“Oh my God, tell me you didn’t pee in the sink.”

“Only once during a party, and I rinsed it real good.”

“Did you use kitchen spray cleaner?” She narrowed her eyes, craning her head to try and see his face. He didn’t answer. “Just water? Damn it, JJ.” She shoved at his head. “You’re gross. I’m not playing with your hair anymore.”

“Nooooooo please, Kie?” He lifted his head and gave her a mournful glance, his mouth screwed up so sadly that his dimple peeked out a little. “I’ll be good. Won’t pee in the shink.”

“In the bathroom or off the dock,” she said sternly. “Nowhere else.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Not even the bathroom sink.”

“Why would you pee in the bathroom sink when the toilet is right there?”

“Because Pope was peeing in the toilet and I really had to go!”

“JJ, did you pee in the bathroom sink too?”

He dropped his head back to her lap, burrowing into her belly. “No.”

“JJ…”

“I rinsed it real good!”

She choked, then laughter bubbled out of her. “Damn it, JJ.”

John B snorted against her leg. “That’s fucked up, man. I really gotta clean more.”

“You really do,” Kiara told him, using both hands to pick a particularly bad tangle out of his wavy hair. “It also wouldn’t hurt you to buy vegetables that don’t come on a pizza.”

JJ nuzzled her belly and goosebumps tingled up her skin. “Now that you’re done yelling, play with my hair some more.”

“Way to ask nicely, Mr. Demanding.”

John B sighed happily. “See, told you you were the best Pogue. I’ve been trying to get that knot out for like a week.”

“Ugh, you haven’t combed your hair for a _week_?” She pushed at John B’s head but he grabbed at her waist, hugging her and JJ’s arm all in one awkward bundle in his efforts to not get ejected from her lap. “I truly and sincerely do not understand how you’ve ever gotten laid.”

“Oh, you look like you got your hands full, Kie.” Sarah sounded softly amused as she padded down the sand toward them, a sarong blowing around her legs with a trill of small tassels. “Forget to hire a babysitter tonight?”

“More like a lion tamer,” Kiara said, gesturing to the pile of handsome men and too much hair, under which her legs had utterly disappeared. “What I wouldn’t give for one of those little stools to ward them off with.”

“And the whip.”

JJ shivered. “Easy, ladies, don’t tease.”

Kiara swatted absently at him. “Actually, I was just bemoaning the fact that I hadn’t managed to house train this bunch of jerks. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did.”

“Doubt it.” Sarah settled, crosslegged next to her. “You’re their favorite. If they won’t do it for you, we’re all screwed.”

Kiara flushed, glancing away over the waves. Was Sarah trying to cheer her up, too? Had one of the guys noticed her maudlin moods and said something to her?

“Sarah!” John B rolled over, beaming, and landed face-up in Sarah’s lap. “I love you. You’re pretty.”

She smirked. “You should really play a little harder to get, John B. Nice guys finish last, haven’t you heard?”

“Don’t mind that, long as you come a couple of times first.” He turned his head and nipped at her bare leg where it peeked out from under her sarong.

“Oh, ho ho…” JJ chortled. “My man finally learned his business. The Joy of Oral Sex, interlibrary loan.” He lifted an unsteady hand toward Sarah for a high five. “You’re welcome.”

She arched an eyebrow at his hand. “So I’m supposed to thank you for being the one to land a sticky, pass-around copy of a sex book in my boyfriend’s room? I almost sent a HAZMAT team in for it once I saw the library sticker.”

JJ dropped his hand, pouting. “Books with pictures are expensive. We can’t all afford a whole leather-bound library.” He squirmed around, pulling his arm from behind Kiara so he could curl up in a sleepy ball, his head sideways on her crossed ankles now that he had her whole lap to himself. His hair tickled the front of her bikini bottoms and she scooted away a little, her belly fluttering.

“Sorry, that’s not what I meant,” Sarah fumbled. “I just—”

Kiara flicked JJ’s ear, changing the subject before things got awkward. The class thing was still a sore spot with Sarah and the Pogues. “Bro, you’re not supposed to bring up oral sex with your buddy’s girlfriend.”

He wrinkled his nose at her, and she attempted to look as if she didn’t find it cute. “You never let me talk about anything fun.”

“Now, that’s not true.” She widened her eyes, batted her lashes. JJ’s eyes flickered from her eyes down to her mouth. “Wanna talk about Old Yeller?”

He groaned. “Nooooooo! No dying dogs. Cruel and unusual punishment!” They all exploded into laughter, calling out the names of different books and movies where the dog died while JJ howled and cursed them until Kiara could barely breathe for laughing. And for the first time in weeks, Kiara felt utterly like herself again.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Pope officially comes out, and JJ does something...not well thought out.


	7. Family Meeting

It was the big “family meeting” day for the Pogues.

The Chateau smelled like salt air and Kraft mac and cheese. John B was sitting on the floor at Sarah’s feet, JJ sprawled across the couch with his sunglasses on upside down, smoking a joint. Kiara had taken the uncomfortable old chair off in the corner. Her legs were crossed, a little too upright like she was in a waiting room, but she offered Pope a reassuring smile when he glanced her way. Pope was on the last cushion of the couch, with JJ’s toes tucked under his leg. He was sort of on edge about it, like it was going to be weird for people to see them touching that way before the announcement was made, but then this whole gathering already felt too formal and weird for the Pogues.

Pope glanced at the joint in JJ’s hand, decided that wasn’t going to make anything better, and didn’t reach for it.

“Look, I know you all already know this,” Pope said, “but I’ve been basically messing this whole thing up and I think it’d be better if we just got it out in the open.”

“For the record, you didn’t mess anything up,” Kiara said. “But go ahead.”

Pope’s lip twitched and he pushed on before he lost his nerve. “I think you all know I’ve been questioning, and I think I might be bi, or maybe gay. I dunno. I know I like JJ.”

Sarah’s brows went up. “Oh, that’s what this is about? I thought this was a meeting about the gold. But wow, yeah, okay.” She smiled at Pope. “That’s cool.”

“Wait, John B didn’t tell you?”

“John B knew?” She frowned down at her boyfriend.

“Kie says you’re not supposed to co-opt somebody’s coming out,” John B said. “Like, it’s not your thing, it’s their thing to do when they want. That’s why I couldn’t tell you. Oh and hey, me and Pope kissed as part of his whole like…” He glanced at Kie. “Thing.”

“Why are you looking at me?” Kiara said. “It’s Pope’s business. And his sexual preference isn’t a ‘thing,’ it’s just who he is.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” John B held up his hands. “I always say this shit wrong.”

Sarah was looking a little more surprised at this development than at the coming out, so Pope said to her, “It was bad, don’t worry. The kiss, I mean.”

She laughed. “Um, I don’t know if I should be less worried that you’re not going to be my competition, or more worried because my boyfriend is apparently a bad kisser.”

John B wasn’t paying attention to them. His eyes kept straying to his oldest friend and Pope wondered if maybe JJ and John B somehow hadn’t had a conversation about this yet.

“So, JJ, if you and Pope…” John B trailed off, then coughed. “I mean, then…”

JJ blew out a big lungful of smoke, not looking up. “I’m queer as fuck, dude.”

John B nodded. “Okay.” He crossed the room and pulled JJ off the couch, hugged him hard, then smacked him in the shoulder. “Think you couldn’t tell me? What the hell?”

“Always with the lectures about communication, dear.” JJ blew smoke in his face. John B stole his joint and made a face at him. JJ knocked the brim of his cap down, and with that bit of nonverbal communication, they seemed cool again.

To Pope, John B said, “I’m here, man. Whatever you need. You want to kiss me again? I know I sucked, but I could try to be better.”

“No,” Pope said. “I’m really not sure you can.”

JJ smirked. “He already sent Sarah a condolence card.”

John B flicked him in the ear.

“Sympathy flowers, too.” JJ’s lips twitched, his dimple peeking out. “Think they were lilies. Very tasteful.” John B went in for a nipple twister and they started scuffling.

“Don’t set the couch on fire!” Kiara yelped, dashing over long enough to rescue the joint and take a long, long drag. Pope realized she’d been pretty subdued during all of this.

He tilted his head at her, questioning, and she shrugged, dropping down onto the arm of Sarah’s chair. “It’s your coming out, not mine. Are _you_ okay?”

“I mean, mine and JJ’s…” He gestured at his boyfriend, whose red face was currently peeking out from under John B’s elbow, thrashing as he received a noogie. Pope started to smile. “I guess it went pretty okay. Want to go fishing?”

“Only if we can leave those two losers behind,” Sarah said, pushing out of the chair.

“Race you to the boat?” Kiara proposed, and John B and JJ exploded up off the couch, into a truce in an instant.

Sarah dashed out the door, but JJ had lost his sunglasses in the rough housing, and Pope gasped when he saw his face. Kiara grabbed his arm, stopping him dead.

“Whoa, what the fuck, JJ? Where did you get a black eye?” Kiara glanced after Sarah, but she was already out the door, so Kiara lowered her voice and stepped in. “Did you go home to check on your dad again? Seriously, JJ, _why_?”

“Uh, I dunno, maybe because he pops pills by the handful and washes them down with whiskey and I’d prefer to find his body before it sits for a week, since probably nobody’s going to find him if I don’t?” JJ shook her off and dug his sunglasses out of the cushions of the couch.

Pope’s mind was racing, trying to remember the last time he’d seen JJ without sunglasses. This had to have happened only yesterday.

“I’m reporting him,” Kiara said tightly. “I don’t care what you say, JJ, he doesn’t just get to—”

“Wasn’t him.” JJ pulled one of John B’s trucker hats off the hook on the wall and slid it backwards onto his head. “Chill, Kie. It was just this Kook douche, thought he could get away with talking shit because I was at work and hauling a tub full of dishes he thought I wouldn’t want to break.” JJ smiled, thinly, and Pope’s stomach flipped upside down. “Boy, was he surprised when I broke them on his face.”

“JJ, fighting at _work_?” Kiara exhaled. “Listen, I know it’s hard for you right now—” She broke off and Pope frowned.

Wait, what was hard for JJ right now? Was JJ going through something Pope didn’t know about? He’d been all grins and confident hands ever since their first kiss. Taking every opportunity to tug Pope over behind a car or around a corner, even at school. Kissing him like he couldn’t breathe without it. To Pope, JJ seemed like he was doing more than okay lately.

“But if you’re upset, you should talk to one of us,” Kiara was saying. “Don’t go picking fights at work. You’re going to get fired and you need that job!”

“The only thing I was upset about was his face, being all unpunched and douchy like it was,” JJ said. “And let’s be fair, Kie, it’s not like bussing dishes was my dream. I think I can live without hauling other people’s trash in a place where a bunch of dicks think they can call me ‘sport’ for a ten percent tip-out.”

Pope winced. “You got fired?” How long was it going to take him to pay the restitution without the extra hundred a week he could spare from bussing tables? Pope immediately started calculating how many extra hours he could grab at his dad’s store if he went to bed even later. He was still getting six hours a night on Tuesdays and Fridays, so he could probably add onto his shifts those days, but the extra two hours before closing weren’t going to equal out what JJ’s job had made. Plus, Pope knew JJ ate like half his meals at that hotel, so the extra groceries for the Chateau would add up.

JJ scoffed, heading for the door. “Can we go fishing already? I make better money working around the marina anyway, and I like fixing boats a hell of a lot more than I like serving Kooks. No loss, my friends, and you should see the other guy. Totally worth it.”

“JJ.” John B’s flat voice stopped him dead.

JJ fidgeted, scowling, then threw a glance back at his best friend. “What?”

Sarah poked her head back into the house. “Are you guys com—” She broke off when she saw John B’s expression.

“Was that fight because of—” John B gestured. “I mean, you just came out, dude.”

JJ pulled off his sunglasses. “Are you asking if I’m getting in fights because I’m pissed about people knowing I’m with Pope?” He stalked up to John B, his jaw flexing. “You better think real careful about what comes out your mouth right now, man.”

“I’m not saying you should be upset about being with Pope, fucking _obviously_ ,” John B shot back. “But you have to admit, the timing’s a little…I’m just saying, man. If you need us, if that guy said shit to you, I’ll kick his ass myself. Or if like…I don’t know, just…” He glanced to Kiara.

“Talk to us, JJ,” Kiara was hugging her arms around her chest like she only did when she was about to cry, and there was something passing between her and JJ that Pope couldn’t quite decode. “If you’re upset about…anything. You can just say so. You don’t have to be a hero.”

He stared back at her for a long moment, then snorted, a smile bouncing up onto his face. “But I make such a good hero.”

He extended his arms, pretending to fly through the room.

“I think the cape makes my shoulders look bigger, right?” He zoomed around John B, turning it into a jostling, back slapping hug. “I’m cool, man. You all need to chill and stop being such a bunch of nannies. I’ve never been able to stand Kooks, and that hotel was lousy with them. Simple as that. No offense, Sarah.” He did his hero-flying-zoom around her, favoring her with a full dimple grin that made Pope even more suspicious because it looked like he was trying maybe a little too hard.

“None taken,” she said. “I’d like to think my Kook card got revoked when I sent my dad to prison and we lost our house.”

“C’mon then,” JJ said. “The fish wait for no man. Not even a hero.”

The other three crowded outside toward the boat, but Pope crossed the room and bumped Kiara with his shoulder. “You okay?”

She nodded, her eyes straying toward the door. “Just…sometimes it’s hard. To know when to worry about JJ, you know?”

He did know. Fuck, did he know all about that.

“I just assume I should worry all the time,” Pope joked, and she smiled.

“Right?”

She grabbed her bag and followed the others, and Pope trailed along behind, categorizing the inconsistencies in the data, but unable to come up with a viable hypothesis.

Kiara seemed to know or at least suspect that something was bothering JJ, and getting fired and picking fights was the purest JJ translation of “upset” that existed. But Pope genuinely didn’t think JJ cared if anybody knew he was gay, except maybe his dad, who was such a prick that he was most likely a homophobic prick, too. JJ had also been super chill about people knowing about him and Pope.

It could be the open relationship thing, the idea of Pope experimenting with other people, but JJ had laughed his ass off when Pope told him about the John B kiss, and he’d helped him with his Grindr profile, so…

Pope shut the door to the Chateau and headed down the dock, still thinking.

Evidence inconclusive. Larger sample size needed. Unfortunately, Pope was about to have the opportunity to collect a lot more data, because this weekend was his first Grindr date.


	8. Pope Goes Grindr

**Chapter 8: Pope goes Grindr**

**[Text messages]**

**7:42 p.m.**

Pope: I think I'm gonna be sick.

Kiara: You looked HOT when you left. You've got this.

Pope: Yes, vomit is a highly probable potential outcome.

Kiara: You still on the ferry?

Pope: Yes.

Kiara: Take off your shirt if you get sick so you don't get puke on it, and I put mouthwash in your backpack. Also, you don't have to do this.

Pope: THERE ARE CONDOMS IN HERE

Kiara: Does that mean you actually threw up and needed the mouthwash?

Pope: WTF

Pope: WTF WTF WTF WTF

Pope: Do you WANT me to cheat on JJ?

Kiara: Literally I would have to roofie you AND transplant your personality to make you cheat on JJ.

Kiara: A- You're in an open relationship so I am fairly certain cheating isn't a thing.

Kiara: B- I want you to be safe to do whatever feels right to you if you like the guy.

Kiara: And Pope? It's okay to like the guy.

Kiara: That's sort of the whole point of trying this.

Pope: Ferry's landing. He's supposed to meet me here. Hold on.

**8:36 p.m.**

Pope: SOS

Pope: SO FUCKING S

Pope: im freaking the fuck out you have to come oh my god k im so sorry im an idiot I didnt mean to and I thought it would be ok but it wasnt and pls dont tell jj its fine im fine just dont tell him

Pope: are you coming where are you

Kiara: I'M COMING WE LIVE ON AN ISLAND

Kiara: The next ferry isnt for 4 minutes are you okay where are you

Kiara: 911?

Kiara: should I bring the pogues are you okay are you safe did he hurt you

Pope: im okay don't tell the pogyues!

Pope: its fine im fine just come

Kiara: Getting on the ferry now, if you want me to jump and swim I will, just say the word. Hang in there.

Kiara: Just landing

Pope: That's 4 min faster than the record

Kiara: You've never seen me flirt with One-Ear Joe, clearly. He really put the hustle on for me. Where are you?

Pope: Boardwalk. By the shrimp shack.

Kiara: Local shrimp shack or the chain?

Pope: local

Kiara: I'm coming, hang on ok

Kiara: I'm right in front of the local shrimp shack. I don't see you, are you still there?

Pope: UNDER the boardwalk.

Kiara hopped down onto the sand, stalking forward, then back as she scanned, then spotted a flash of deep red and dashed toward that part of the boardwalk.

"Oh my God, Pope, what _happened_? Are you okay, did he try something terrible?" She dropped to her knees, shading her eyes to see into the dark corner where he was crouched.

"I ran away." His voice was strong, not timid like she'd been expecting. Full of disgust. "I ran the fuck away like a tiny dog with its tiny tail between its tiny legs and I hid so he couldn't find me. On our first date."

She sagged, the ache in her chest making its way all the way up to her throat. She sat back on her heels, one of her flip flops bending hard under her weight. "Pope. Oh, Pope…"

"I couldn't do it." His voice broke and squeaked a little. "He was _smiling_ at me and you could tell he wanted to—and I—and if JJ—" he sputtered. "I _hated_ it," he breathed, choking a little on the word.

Black boots hit sand and JJ ducked his head to squint below the boardwalk. "Bro, you are freaking out. That guy can fuck off if you didn't like him, who cares?"

Pope flinched back, curling deeper into the shadows of the boardwalk as more feet shook the boards overhead. Sand filtered down, catching the light now that Kiara's eyes were adjusted enough to see. "What the hell, Kie? I told you not to tell him!"

"I didn't! He showed up when I was at the ferry and I couldn't shake him."

"You mean you suck at lying," JJ said. "You were clearly super wigged out and hurrying onto the ferry, and wouldn't tell me what was wrong. I thought you were getting an abortion or something."

"Really, JJ? That's your first guess of what I'd be doing on a Friday night?"

"I don't know!" He threw his arms out. "You were _freaking_ out. How shitty of a friend would I be if I was just like, 'oh, get on the ferry by yourself, have fun'? You could have told me it was about Pope's date."

"Oh really?" She gestured between them. "You want to tell me which Pogue loyalty trumps when you both ask me to not to tell things to the other? Because I sure as shit don't know the math on that one."

JJ grumbled something else, but she didn't process it because the shards of light coming down through the boardwalk were striking a gleam of liquid that was winding down Pope's cheek. She caught her breath, and JJ shut up.

He didn't crowd Pope. Just squatted and peered into the darkness under the boardwalk. "Bro. Why the fuck are you over here making yourself kiss guys you don't want to kiss?" His voice dropped, going tight in a way that made Kiara want to reach for him. "The fuck did I say to make you think that's what I wanted?"

"I just needed to know…" Pope whispered, his whole cheek gleaming with the reflected light on his tears now.

JJ looked to Kiara, his face twisting. He sagged back toward his heels, his balance wavering. She crawled in under the boardwalk and curled under Pope's arm, her flip-flops getting lost somewhere in the sand and bits of trash.

"Please don't though, Pope," she whispered, tucking her forehead into his neck. "Not like this. It's not you. I get wanting to know, but…"

He ducked his head and buried it in her hair, breathing in ragged, pulling gasps. "It's fine," he said. "I just needed a minute. It's fine, I'm fine. I'm sorry to call you and make you pay for the ferry and everything, I'll cover it."

"Pope…" JJ was sitting now, his face pained. His right boot nudged Pope's freshly washed sneaker. "That's not how shit works. You can't just…fucking make out with randos if you aren't into them. You have to _like_ them." He paused. "And if you try to pay for the ferry, I'm going to punch you in the face."

"Okay, _violence_ ," Kiara said.

"I don't care," JJ said. "Right in the face."

Pope lifted his head, and Kiara immediately missed the warm pressure on her hair, even when he sniffed and she realized he'd probably dripped snot in said hair. "In the face?" Pope said, his voice small.

"Maybe the ribs."

Pope sniffled again.

"Probably just the stomach," JJ relented. "Like one time. But if you make yourself go on a date again where you hate it so much you fucking go and fucking hide under the board walk and fucking text Kie to come get you, I'm going to go full water tower on this beach, swear to God."

"Mass shootings are not a joke," Kie said tiredly.

"Who said I was joking?"

She held out an arm and JJ edged in under the boardwalk. When he glanced around twitchily, hesitating and ducking his head, she grabbed him by the collar and tipped him into their already messy pile of arms and legs. Her ribs got squished when Pope reached for him, and for once, she didn't mind at all.

JJ was hot on one side of her, his arms too corded and intense, as always, his breath washing into her neck in cut off little gulps. She didn't think Pope could hear how upset he was, but she could. On her other side, though, Pope was bearing the brunt of both their weight, his body getting soft and pliable as he accepted the embrace. His breaths were getting longer, slower, even as JJ's got shorter.

Kiara squeezed them both a little tighter, trying to figure out what she could do to help, but then JJ burst out, "Man, Pope, this isn't cool. I'm fine with you figuring stuff out, but this isn't experimenting, this is like…fucking yourself over." He shifted back, his hat knocked slightly askew and hair spraying from underneath.

Kiara sat up, too, moving crosslegged to fit better under the boardwalk. "He's right, Pope. I was trying to be supportive and go along with your plan, because I know you're feeling less than grounded at the moment, but seriously. Kissing random strangers from a hook up site is…not that it's wrong, but it's so clearly wrong for _you_."

"Why?" Pope said, his eyes flashing as he threw out his hands. "Once you form a hypothesis, you test it. I get that it sucked this time, but how the hell else am I supposed to do it, Kie? You need a statistically significant sample size, or your conclusions aren't _valid_. That's science."

Kiara glanced at JJ and his eyes were like gasoline starting to burn, his mouth going hard.

"Okay, fine." Kiara's voice was dangerous. "There are probably a hundred guys on this beach. If I went and started kissing them, I'd feel a spark what do you figure? Once? Maybe twice? And the rest would be awkward, or gross, or just blah. So are you going to do a hundred Grindr dates?"

Pope stared out at the beach, the sunlight almost too bright beyond the boardwalk. "You think you'd find one or two, though?"

Kiara hesitated, her brow furrowing. "Uh…does that seem like a good number to you?"

"It's just, when I look at them," Pope said quietly, "I feel nothing. I _know_ when you go to a beach, you're supposed to want to look at everybody all shirtless and in bikinis but like…I don't care. And I've never cared. I used to try and pretend to pick out the hottest girl in a bikini with John B and JJ, remember?

"Yeah, I remember," JJ said, draping his arms over his knees and gripping one hand around his opposite wrist. "Because you picked weird ones, not hot ones."

Bright, inappropriate laughter trilled from the walkway above, and Kiara hesitated before offering, "Maybe that means you don't like girls."

"Yeah, but except for when I look at JJ, the guys…I mean, kissing John B was like kissing a sandwich. And I look out there, waiting for that feeling, hoping for something interesting, and it's just…" He waved a hand out at a bunch of shirtless guys playing beach volleyball. "Sandwiches."

JJ's Zippo lighter clattered open, closed, open again a little too fast.

Kiara looked to him. "JJ, go grab us tickets for the ferry back, would you? So we don't miss this one and have to wait two hours for the next. We'll meet you over there in a second."

JJ's lips twitched, his black eye still fading to an ugly yellow. She had a bad feeling today was going to lead to more bruises. On other people, if not on him.

"Okay," he said finally, then looked at her. "But don't you tell him he has to fucking hyperventilate his way through a bunch of hookups to find himself."

"Your faith in me is astonishing."

"Sorry. Fuck. Sorry."

Pope was hanging his head, not looking at either of them.

Kiara reached out and gripped JJ's ankle, because it was the thing closest to her. His sock was tattered at the edge and his calf flexed hard above it. "I know," she said, low and quiet, because she wanted him to know she was on his side, not just on Pope's. That she was on both their sides, always.

He coughed, ducking his head. He didn't shake off her hand.

Before he backed out from under the boardwalk, he slapped his lighter into Pope's hand. "You burn this whole place down before you put yourself in a spot where you feel like this again," he said, his voice low and growling. "For real, Pope. It isn't worth it."

Pope squeezed the lighter, his fingers tight. "I'm—"

"Don't say sorry," JJ interrupted. He leaned in and Kiara looked away, so she didn't see if they kissed or what happened, but then JJ was retreating, bounding back to his feet and stalking down the sand. A group of junior high kids automatically redirected around him, making way.

The lid to the lighter creaked as Pope worked his thumbnail slowly into the crack. Kiara glanced out toward the ocean, her chest a mess of indecision. She wanted to say it, but she was also pretty sure the right thing to do was back off and let Pope have the space to come to his own conclusions. She was very sure JJ wasn't going to last that long without doing something very stupid, and probably destructive.

None of them could afford more restitution. She hadn't told the boys because they all thought she was so rich, but her parents insisted she pay her own gas and car insurance and she'd been putting all her tip money toward restitution so she'd been half a shift from coming up short on the payment this month.

"Pope," she said after a minute. "Have you ever met anybody who was demisexual?"

He looked up hopefully. "Is that what you think I am?"

"I don't want to put labels on you, and you don't have to put labels on yourself if it makes you uncomfortable, or nothing seems like it fits. I'm just saying that not everybody feels attraction the same way. They're not like JJ, zeroing in on the closest set of boobs, or abs…"

"Biceps," Pope said. "He likes biceps."

She smiled a little. "He would. Anyway, for some people, gay or straight, attraction has a lot more to do with what's on the inside than the outside. Like a lot. To the point that the outside is a little…uninteresting if you don't know someone. If you're maybe a little like that, it'd be like a boat with a lot of chrome and no engine—pointless."

"I should still be able to kiss a person without literally running away and hiding under the boardwalk. I'm eighteen fucking years old, Kie, and I'm a virgin." His eyes widened and he looked a bit panicked to have said that out loud. She wasn't really sure who he thought he was kidding that all the Pogues didn't already know. She was pretty sure she'd found out before John B's diary when he'd gotten his first hand job.

"So?" she said without hesitation. "Do you think because I'm eighteen and not a virgin that I'm only normal if I kiss random guys on the beach? Like, okay I'm straight, I like guys, so this is what we do, right? Fine." She ducked out from under the boardwalk and marched off down the beach. The first guy she saw had a surfboard, big biceps and narrow set eyes, a scattering of pimples on the edge of his chin.

He dropped the board when she caught his arm. "Uh, hey."

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

He lit up. "Uh, actually, no. And nice to meet you too." He laughed, his eyes running down over her shorts and crop top. "Is this some kind of prank show?"

She grabbed his face, and Pope ran up and shoved the guy back, hard enough he stumbled over his fallen board. "What the fuck, man?" Pope snapped. "You just what? Let random girls on the beach kiss you?"

"Uh, yeah, dude." He caught his balance and scowled at Pope. "And kindly fuck off so I can get back to it, okay? She approached _me_."

Pope turned to Kiara. "You made your point. Let's go home."

"Is that your boyfriend?" the guy asked her, but she ignored him and turned toward the ferry. "Hey, that's kind of fucked up!" he called after them.

JJ was waiting at the ferry, leaning moodily on the railing and staring down into the murky water splashing against the pilings. She squeezed his arm, but was careful not to give him the kind of sympathetic look he hated. He tipped his chin at her in greeting, and didn't ask what they'd talked about. Maybe he trusted her a little bit after all, despite the lecture.

Halfway through the ride home, Pope got up to go to the bathroom and left them alone. For a moment, it was just the sea air blowing her hair out so it tickled JJ's shoulder, the call of birds circling over the water. JJ sprawled in his seat with his knees wide and his right foot jiggling. The seams on his boots were all blown out at the toe, from flexing too many times.

Kie swept her hair back and nailed him with her gaze, because she wasn't sure when she was going to get another chance to say this. "Why are you going along with this? You fucking hate it, both of you."

JJ stared up at the sky, turning the white gold ring he wore on his thumb. It had been John B's grandpa's wedding ring, but John B didn't wear rings, so when he inherited it, onto JJ's hand it had gone and stayed.

"Pope needs to know exactly what little box to file himself into," JJ said, "so he can feel back in control of all this again. I can step back and let him figure his shit out now, or I can let him stay confused but committed to me and watch him hyperventilate himself into an early grave. The fuck else you think I can do?"

She sagged back, all her arguments dissipating on her tongue. She hated to see him look so miserable. "JJ…"

"Don't," he snapped. "I can take it. It's what Pope needs. But we have to figure out a way where he can get it so he doesn't end up cowering under a fucking boardwalk. Because Kie, if I had seen that guy—"

"I know."

She couldn't take it either. Watching Pope _try_ so hard with strangers. She'd always considered herself a non-violent person, but she hit her limit fast when her friends were scared.

"I…" She exhaled.

"I know." JJ's foot jiggled faster. "It's just for a little while. He's quick. He'll figure it out."

She wanted to say it wasn't Pope she was worried about. Well, obviously it _was_ —damn, it really was—but it also wasn't. But then Pope came back from the bathroom and reached for JJ and they held hands tightly all the way back to the island and Kiara couldn't say a thing.

When they got back, JJ had to go fill scuba tanks at the marina. He offered to no show, then to quit, then to burn the marina down using an oxygen tank explosion so he'd never be caught, but Kiara veto'ed all those ideas. Pope also had the pertinent sentencing guidelines memorized for each potential felony, which bolstered her case.

John B was out on the HMS Pogue with Sarah, and Kiara had swapped a no-I-won't-leave-Pope-here-alone look with JJ before he pouted his way off to work, so she ended up at the Chateau with Pope, doing the dishes.

Well, more holding the dishtowel to look like she was helping while Pope did the dishes and then she slotted them into the dish drainer to air dry.

"Here's the problem with your hypothesis," he said. "If I'm attracted to people I'm emotionally connected to, why was kissing John B so sandwichy? It's not like I don't care about John B."

"Maybe he's just not that good at kissing?"

Pope snickered, looking a lot more relaxed now that they were back home.

"It's not like everybody you're connected to you'll automatically be attracted to. And it's not connected to sexual orientation. With people who identify as demi, it's more that that's the prerequisite. Like, attraction's just never going to happen without emotional connection, so that's the pool you're working with."

Pope scrubbed at a pot that had ramen noodles burned to the bottom. "That's bad news for my Grindr experiment. That means I can't just meet, mack, and run, I'd have to get to know them for a while before I found any that were even candidates. But at the same time, when you explained the definition of demisexuality to me, it sounded so obvious. Like, what else would people ever be like? Seriously, who would want to be sexually attracted to someone they didn't feel emotionally connected to?"

Kiara kicked a beer can closer to the trash. "Fair point. God knows it's pretty inconvenient sometimes who you get the itch for. Remember Carson Blithe?" She mimed gagging and crossed her eyes at the name of her ninth grade boyfriend and his overly gelled emo bangs.

Pope chuckled. "Not your best moment."

He finished the dishes and pulled out the kitchen cleaner, sterilizing the sink and counters with a soothing _whoosh whoosh whoosh_ of the spray.

She leaned a hip against the fridge, watching him chew at the inside of his lip, wishing she could take this burden off his shoulders somehow and drop it onto hers. Just being here and listening felt irritatingly inadequate. He peeked back at her with one of his shy little flicks of his big brown eyes.

"Kie, can I tell you something?"

"Nope. I'm judgy as hell." She balled up the towel and tossed it at him.

He caught it easily, then hung it over the kitchen cabinet door. Put the spray away. Washed his hands and cleared his throat. "I had a big crush on you, once."

"I know." She grinned, crossing her arms. "You told me when you were super high. You also tried to rap."

He snorted. "Not that you'd be mean enough to remind me of that."

"Never. I'm a humanitarian."

He was fidgeting again, so she joined him at the sink and bumped him with her hip.

"That crush is junior years news, Pope. What's on your mind."

"I know you said we were better as friends and I would never want to do anything to jeopardize that but…if what you're saying is right—and it sounds pretty right—then I'm working with a really small pool here. Because the only people I've ever had like a real, full blown crush on are you and JJ." He turned to her, earnest. "Would I be the biggest asshole in the world if I asked if I could kiss you? Because in a way, you're like…my only possible data point."

"Ooh sweet talker…" Kiara couldn't help the smile tugging at her lips. "You gonna engrave that on a heart shaped locket for me?"

He ducked his head, laughed as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't mean to make you feel like a math problem, or like you have to."

"Pope." She brushed his arm, softly. "I'd be honored. I am honored, that you ever thought about me that way when you hadn't thought about any other girl…it's a little flattering, okay?" She rolled her eyes, laughing at herself. "I'm vain enough to enjoy it."

He chuckled. "I promise not to run away and hide under the boardwalk, after."

"You better not. Pretty sure JJ really will light it on fire if you do." She tilted her head toward the front room. "Wanna get out of here? I'm kinda afraid I'm going to end up doomed as another sandwich kiss by proximity if we try this standing up in the kitchen."

She led the way into the living room. Kissing hadn't really been on her list of potential comforting tactics when they came back to the Chateau together. But she'd do just about anything to avoid another evening of putting him, all ash-faced and shaky, on the ferry away from JJ and toward a Grindr date with a man he didn't want to kiss. She never wanted to see Pope crying under a boardwalk again.

He followed her to the other room, but when they sat on the couch together, he just looked at her. Sweet, nervous Pope. A tug came at her chest and she reached for him first, laying her hands along his temples and stroking his hair a little with her thumbs. His eyelashes fluttered. All the boys melted like sleepy puppies when she played with their hair and she thought Pope probably needed a lot more of that right now. "No rush," she murmured. "You're the same person you always were. You're safe, okay? All of this is okay."

She ducked her head, her thumb dropping to skim his cheekbone. His eyes followed her, warm and dark, and she leaned in and kissed him softly.

"Is that okay?" she asked, not fully pulling away.

"Yeah, uh, I think." Pope nodded. "Can I try something?"

"Of course."

He came in with a speed she wasn't expecting this time, kissing her so hard and passionately that she fell against the back of the couch, his mouth grinding hers. She caught his shoulder. "Whoa, Pope."

He jumped back. "Sorry sorry sorry. Oh shit."

She held up a hand, smiling. "No, it's fine, hey. It's not a big deal, that's just a little much for me."

He hung his head. "JJ likes it when I…" He squirmed.

"I bet he does." She grinned. "But JJ's JJ and I'm me. Pope?" She touched his face, turned it back toward her. "Can we try one more time?"

They hadn't had the space to do that, when she'd kissed him for the first time, two years ago right before John B got shipwrecked and their whole lives went up in flames.

He nodded quickly and she scooted a little closer, her bent knee hooking over his thigh. She kissed him more firmly now that she knew she didn't have to be as careful, and something about the shape of his lips made it so easy for hers to melt open. The kiss went deep before she thought about it, his tongue gentle and sweet with hers. Her hands eased on his shoulders and his disappeared into her hair. It felt like something they'd always done.

One kiss faded into a dozen small ones, their lips nibbling at each other, the hint of a smile lifting her face as she sank closer into his lap. It felt like cuddling, all his small kisses alighting upon her like a fluttering that sparkled across her nerve endings. His eyes were smiling at her when they eased apart and she caught her breath, remembering it was an experiment. But his hands were cradling her head and it felt so good to be held like that so she didn't move, hoping she could steal another instant before he remembered, too.

And then the breath slid out of her and she knew their time was up. She pulled back, his fingers slipping out of her hair so slowly that it sent tingles up every strand. A throb lifted from her chest to her throat and she suddenly felt like she'd missed him. For decades, it seemed like, a whole ghost life they'd never had playing out between them in the instant before her lashes flickered down.

She let out a little laugh to break the quiet, plucking at the hem of his shirt. "Wow, uh…so I guess we know _I'm_ straight."

Pope smiled, too, his eyes oddly luminous.

"Well," she backpedaled, wanting to be totally honest. "Maybe not totally straight."

"I thought you said that was just because you watched that show with Zoe Kravitz in it."

"Yeah, but during my Kook year I…anyway, bi's not out of the question. I wouldn't kick Zoe Kravitz out of bed, but it's almost all guys I've been interested in, in the end."

"Wait, during your Kook year, did you kiss _Sarah_?" His eyes bulged.

"Oh my God, so off track here, Pope." She swatted at him, scooting away to a friendlier distance. "You're supposed to be the one experimenting, not me. So…"

He pulled a half-dead feather pillow over his lap, picking at a loose thread on the faded nautical print pillowcase. "I've always really liked this pillow. Yeah, um, so…"

"I felt it, too," she rushed out, her own twinge of self-consciousness nothing compared to not leaving Pope hanging. "I mean, wait, you did too, right? I wasn't just like, macking all over you?"

"Kie." He gave her a look. "I don't really like this pillow _that_ much."

She grinned. "Does that mean I get my Best Data Point locket?"

He rolled his eyes, and he looked so irritated and adorable that she leaned over and kissed him again, laughing. But then his palm caught her face and it was bigger and stronger than she remembered it being, and his tongue was at home with hers and—damn, there it was again. Like they were years older and they'd always been here, done this. Like his scent was on her pillows and she slept in his shirt.

She sat back on her heels. This didn't feel like testing out the waters anymore. _This_ felt like cheating. "Whoa, we probably shouldn't—I mean, you and JJ."

"He knows I'm experimenting," Pope said. "But…yeah."

He was looking at her and she couldn't say any of the crazy things that kiss had made her think, not even to Pope.

But his eyes had changed, too, and she could tell there was _something_ different there. On his side, not just hers.

"Want to, uh, play a video game?" He dug up one of John B's ancient Nintendo controllers and offered it to her with a wry smile. "You speak Sumerian, right?"

She laughed. "Pass that clay tablet right on over, cowboy, and we'll see who speaks better Sumerian." She settled crosslegged next to him and he flipped on the boxy TV.

"You want Mario or—"

"Mario, can't believe you even asked." She grinned. "Sucker. You're stuck with Luigi now."

He jostled her with his elbow and beat her to the end of the first level, as punishment. Before they started the second, he glanced her way. "Hey, uh, I wanted to say thank you, Kie." He smiled at her, a little shy. "That pretty much answered that, I guess. I'm bi. And probably demi. Ask me in thirty years when I care enough to scrape up to going on another mainland date and kissing a stranger to double check."

"Hmm…" She hid a smile behind picking up her phone and pretending to scroll through. "Not sure my calendar goes forward that far."

He scoffed, and warmth sparkled up through her to see some of his panicked energy of the last few weeks finally easing away. She leaned over and dropped a kiss on his cheek.

"You're always same old Pope to me," she whispered.

"Same old weird Pope," he joked.

"Yup." She grinned. "But normal weird, again."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Up next, JJ's reaction to the Pope/Kie experiment kiss, and the story behind one of JJ's pieces of jewelry.


	9. Rosary

**Chapter 9: Rosary**

JJ cut out of his shift at the marina twelve minutes early, only because he didn’t think he could get away with fifteen. Picked Pope up at the Chateau and slapped Kie the quick Pogue handshake without a word, because that girl had been cool as hell today. She smiled, with none of that sad-pity in her eyes, but a little bit of extra softness that he was pretty sure meant she wasn’t buying his line of bullshit about the whole black eye thing.

The black eye was pretty much gone anyway. And nine out of ten he would have wanted to punch that Kook asshat anyway, even if he hadn’t had his boyfriend’s new Grindr profile burning a hole through his brain that day.

If you thought about it, it was basically a public service. Should count against his one billion community service hours.

He felt a lot fucking better once Pope’s hands were loose on his waist, the growl of the bike beneath him. Something about loud engines—boats and bikes—always quieted his head right down. Would go to sleep to that shit if he could. Like rich people went to sleep with recordings of mountain streams and tinkling bells.

He took them down one of the web of dirt roads out toward the marsh, parked behind a tree dangling the couple of rotting old boards that he and John B had tried to spruce into a treehouse once.

“Hey, JJ?” Pope said.

He did not like that tone coming out of Pope’s mouth, no he fucking didn’t. But Pope was even tense on the longest, sunniest Saturdays in summertime, so JJ kept it chill and glanced back at him. “Sup?” He picked up a stick and tossed it out into the marsh, happy to be off work and moving.

“You should know Kie and me kissed today.”

His head jerked around, but as soon as he saw the look on Pope’s face, something in him shifted, relaxed, and then he burst out laughing.

“Yeah, and she blew your mind, right?”

Pope blinked, sputtering, and JJ _knew_ that feeling, fucking A, yes he did, and that just made him laugh harder. Especially since Pope was all goldfish-faced about it.

“You gonna leave me for her now, Pope?”

Pope’s face cleared, and he shoved at JJ’s shoulder. “Damn right I am. She can cook.”

“Atomic hot, that girl.”

“ _Atomic_ fucking hot,” Pope said, and they shared a moment of awed silence. “For real, JJ, I don’t even know if I liked it because that means I like girls, or just because damn, man, it’s _her_.”

“You’d have to be stone,” JJ agreed, picking up a flat stone and bouncing it in his palm. “Like, stone in a ‘frigerator.”

Pope nodded, catching the rock on JJ’s next bounce and then sending it skipping out over the march. It got four hops before it sank, and JJ was pretty sure he could get five, but then he glanced at Pope and got distracted before he went for a rock of his own.

“So…bi.”

“Yup. And she thinks I might be demisexual.” He sat down in the grass, so JJ rolled down next to him, his hands draped over his knees as he tugged at the beads on his bracelet.

“The fuck is that? Because I think you’re fully fucking sexual, dude, and the sheets on your bed think so, too. As does your shower, and the couch at the Chateau, and my bike.”

“It’s not like that. Doesn’t mean you don’t have sexual feelings. It means you have to have an emotional connection to somebody to be attracted to them.”

JJ waited to see if there was more to it. “Yeah, but dude, you’ve always been like that.”

Pope tried a lopsided, tentative smile. “So maybe she’s right.”

“I didn’t know that was a thing, though.” He dug another stone out of the grass, tossed it into the water so he could watch the ripples expand. “Thought it was just a Pope thing. But that’s cool. Doesn’t concern me anyway, since you’re going to leave me for Kie.”

“Hell yeah I am.” A flick of his eyes was JJ’s only warning before Pope launched at him, and they rolled over and over in the grass, laughing and scrapping to see who could end up on top. “Gonna buy her roses and three surfboards,” Pope panted as they wrestled, “and when the gold comes through and you’re living in your Kook house with your big-ass statue of yourself, we’re going to throw eggs at your ugly statue, and put soap bubbles in your koi pond.”

JJ let Pope roll onto the top. “Long as you guys climb up to my window and sex me up real good before you leave. Then you can murder my kois all you want.”

Pope kissed him, urgent and strong, and JJ drank it down like it had been weeks. It should bother him that Pope had just been kissing Kie, but that just made JJ want to go harder. For so many reasons. He flipped Pope underneath him, tugging at his shirt, but Pope was pushing at his shoulders now and he had to stop.

“JJ. Are you mad, for real?” Pope turned on his side, facing him. “Because I know we decided to keep it open for now, but when you said that, I don’t think you thought…I mean, Kie’s pretty different. Than just whoever.”

“Fucking jealous is what I am,” JJ said. “Of both your asses. Did you take video?”

Pope groaned. “JJ!”

JJ stuffed his fist up under his head, letting his elbow squelch down into the soft grass. He didn’t really want to sort out all the shit in his chest, but he also didn’t want Pope up tonight worrying about it. Especially since in the end, it didn’t matter what he thought. There was only one answer, when it came to Pope and him.

JJ was in. Whatever else that was gonna be would be.

“Do I blame you for kissing the hottest girl we have ever seen?” JJ said. “No, I do not. You’re way too smart to pass that shit up if she gave you a shot. Am I a little hard and also a little pissed off about it?” He nodded as if answering his own question. “Yes, also that, because damn son, I got a brain in my head.”

“JJ…” Pope’s face fell as he responded to—of fucking course—the _one_ bad thing in all the true things JJ had just said.

He caught Pope by that tight curve of muscle between his shoulder and his neck, and shook him a little.

“Fucking honestly, bro? I’d let you fuck Kie’s brains clean out if it settled you down about all this bi stuff, so you weren’t panic attacking over having to kiss randos anymore. You’re good now, right?”

He knew he was, had known since the first look he got at Pope’s face when they pulled up here. Pope’s eyes were different; okay in a way they hadn’t been in a while. But he waited and let Pope tell him anyway because he wanted the dude to hear himself say it.

“Yeah,” Pope said. “Yeah, I think I’m good.”

JJ squeezed his shoulder, holding the lock of their eyes. “Then we’re good.”

Pope leaned in, tentative again, but JJ held still until Pope got the nerve to go for a kiss. He could not figure out why Pope thought there was shit JJ wouldn’t want him to do, just because they were dating now. But it wasn’t any hardship holding still and quiet and coaxing Pope in until he did what he wanted to do in the first place.

JJ used to do it with the ducks in his yard, and the squirrels. Just trying to get ‘em close enough he could feel what it was like to pet them. He always wanted to have pets that danced around and helped him do shit, like in the Disney movies. Or at least wild animals that liked him and followed him around, like they sometimes did in books. But invariably, he just ended up a few pieces of white bread down and bitten somewhere or another. Trick was, you couldn’t go grabbing when they finally got close enough. You had to keep it slow and gentle the whole way through or your ass got bit.

That’s why JJ let Pope kiss on him a little while, but then laid back in the marsh grass, plucking a fresh stem to chew on.

“Can I?” Pope asked, edging closer.

“Fuck no,” JJ said, holding his arm up for Pope to slide underneath it. “Hate it when you touch me.”

Pope laid his head on JJ’s chest and JJ thumbed off his boyfriend’s hat, laying his hand over the back of his hair. It felt just about like heaven, when Kie played with your hair. He didn’t know how to do it all soft the way she did, but he knew it chilled Pope right out, so he tried to do it anyway, drawing his fingers lightly over Pope’s hair.

 _Kie._ She’d been perfect today, ducking under the boardwalk when Pope started to cry. When JJ was about to come all the fucking way apart and just rip the boards off the thing. Throw all the sand off the beach into the ocean, shave his damn head, light his clothes on fire. There weren’t words for that shit. For when you saw your boyfriend crying because he didn’t want another man touching on him, and you hadn’t been there.

When you couldn’t save him. ‘Cause it was his choice.

She would have been perfect when Pope kissed her, too, he bet. He couldn’t picture exactly how it might have gone, even though he’d seen their one, brief kiss years before. It wouldn’t have been too fast or aggressive, probably, but not passive, either. She was deep down sweet but fiery as fuck, too.

JJ squeezed his eyes shut. He had to stop thinking about her. It had gotten to be like the tide coming in and out. The way he noticed when she entered a room. Clocked exactly what bikini she was wearing and when the last time it was she’d worn it. The way she looked out over the ocean when she had her period and she was feeling bad, just the tiniest wince at the corner of her eye, like pain wasn’t shit to her. The way he couldn’t stop listening for _her_ laugh after he dropped a joke, no matter how crowded the room.

He’d had a thing for her so long, it was just like the island—a part of him that there was no sense questioning whether it was good or bad, because it just was. Had never mattered what he’d have called it, had known for years the door was closed on her side.

But once he had Pope, it didn’t go away. And there was no question there, either. No hesitation in any part of him that didn’t belong to the other man. It was so easy, how it took all of him all at once.

It should have meant he stopped getting hard when Kiara was shimmying to the music on the boat. Should have meant he didn’t get that little stupid ding of _hope_ when she swatted him away, her eyes rolling but her lips tickling into a smile. Or when something happened with the Pogues and her gaze always went to him first.

JJ knew what it meant, these feelings.

Had heard the stories, seen the babies with the wrong colored hair, the screeched fights and clothes thrown out on the lawn. You only got your clothes thrown out on the lawn if you kept getting hard for one person after you were in love with another.

And Maybanks did it all the time.

Went down as easy as that fourth drink, the one you knew you shouldn’t have because you should be getting on home. Went into your pocket as easy as that five palmed out of some else’s tip jar.

JJ’s hand tightened, cupping Pope’s head more firmly.

_It starts with doing the right thing with little things, like having the discipline not to smoke in the house. And it grows right on up to big things, like becoming a man you can be proud to be._

Heyward’s voice was as clear in his mind as it had been in Pope’s room. That was one man who’d never had his clothes thrown out on the lawn. JJ could be more like Pope’s dad than his own, one tiny choice at a time. The way Kie was rich but was still tough. How Sarah climbed down from her mansion and got cool.

It started with not thinking about Kie kissing Pope, and wishing it had been him. He could be better, and for once in his broke-ass life, he _had_ something to lose. He had Pope.

He kissed the other man’s head, Pope’s hair wiry and bouncy under his lips. Pope was playing with JJ’s bracelet, the one with the small wooden beads.

“It’s so weird to see you wearing something that looks like a rosary,” Pope said absently. “Probably blasphemy, as much stuff as you’ve stolen with that hand.”

“It is a rosary,” JJ said. “I found it in that old abandoned church, the one that burned down the night John B was running from the cops.”

“Wait, but you kept it?” Pope sounded confused.

“I thought it was the ugliest necklace I’d ever seen, and Kie told me people used them keep track of how many times they’d said the same prayer. I told her it was stupid as shit to say the same thing over and over, like God was a fucking drunk who didn’t listen the first time.”

Then again, maybe if he’d had a rosary to mark how many times he had to say it, his dad would have remembered to pick him up at school when he was little. Maybe there was some special number you got to where it finally stuck.

“So why’d you keep it, if you thought it was ugly?” Pope asked, his cheek warm against JJ’s chest.

He gazed up at the sky, watching a big cloud dissolve into blue.

“Kie said people liked them because they repeat something they need to know over and over and it reminds them of what’s right. What’s true. She made it into bracelets for John B and me. Dunno what she thought we needed to know, but I kind of like messing with it, so I kept it.”

Pope was toying with the beads, still staring thoughtfully at the bracelet. He rolled onto his stomach, propping his chin onto JJ’s chest and looking up at him.

“It’s you first,” he said, all quiet and low, in that voice that went straight into the center of JJ’s brain and stuck there. “Before everybody.”

JJ didn’t want to stop looking at him, was a little afraid to blink. It felt like a wild animal he’d startle away if he moved, the idea that he could be anyone’s _first_ choice. Even if they had other people they could pick.

Pope’s fingers ran over the beads, each one tickling over JJ’s wrist as it passed through Pope’s fingers. “I love you,” he said.

It was all he said, but JJ watched him until every bead had passed through Pope’s fingers, until they lay in a perfect circle all the way around his wrist.

Then his eyelids started to droop, and he fell asleep there in the marsh grass, with his boyfriend’s head on his chest and Pope’s hand cupped over JJ’s bracelets like he could make it so they would never get old or fall off, not ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: Fun fact, I noticed JJ’s bracelet, thought it looked like rosary and the whole backstory of it popped into my head, along with the metaphor in this chapter. Which made it a real surprise when I went back to rewatch the show and realized John B really DOES have a matching bracelet to JJ’s wooden beaded one, even though Kie and Pope don’t.


	10. A Loan Between Friends

**Chapter 10: A Loan Between Friends**

Kiara stepped out the back door of the Wreck and took a deep breath. The night was warm, but everything felt deliciously cool after being between the broiler and the fryer all night, not even counting the steam off the Hobart dishwasher. She could already feel the sweat drying on her neck, the strands of her upswept hair still damp at the roots. 

The sky was into the dregs of sunset now, just enough light left to make the water ripple like a liquid mirror, reflecting the sky as if the whole world was made of it. The ocean was so beautiful it took her a second to register the familiar silhouette of a man hunched over the railing, looking out over the water. A cloud of vape smoke billowed up from his mouth, blurring all the colors of sea and sky for just an instant before the wind carried it away.

Kiara hesitated on the stairs. JJ was alone, and he’d waited outside instead of barging right into the kitchen like his normal walking, smirking health code violation. Did that mean he was upset about her and Pope’s kissing experiment yesterday?

But no, he and Pope had both been chatting on the Pogues and Sarah group text today and seemed normal. Kiara had shared an article about increasing sea level, Pope had raised her a study on changing oceanic salinity, and JJ had topped that with an article of questionable scientific veracity comparing the salinity levels of semen and sea water. Sarah had added a row of laughing-until-crying emojis and John B had wondered to the group at large if anybody had seen his last pair of clean socks.

It didn’t seem like a lead-in to angst, but with JJ, it was sometimes hard to tell. He was a startlingly talented liar, when it suited his purposes. She hitched her tote bag up higher and descended the back stoop.

“Hey, loser. You know if you want to hang around for an autograph after the show, you’re supposed to stalk the side door, not the back.”

He turned his head, smirking without pushing off the railing. “Must be you’re the one looking for an autograph then.” He turned, leaning back against the old wood rail. “Gonna have to show a lot more skin to get one, too.”

She poked out her foot and waggled her toes, nearly black in her flip flops from all the grime from mopping the kitchen. “This do it for you?”

He snorted. “That explains why you’re practically staggering. Thought you said you were going to stop wearing flip flops for long shifts.” He looked back out at the ocean, even though it was so dark by now that there wasn’t much to see.

She swiped his vape and sipped off it, then made a face when she realized it was nicotine, not THC. She sputtered out a cloud of vanilla-scented vapor. “Ew.” She passed it back. “I _was_ going to stop wearing flip flops, but sort of forgot to research what kind of shoes make your feet not hurt.”

He took her by the hips and lifted her, depositing her on top of the wooden rail fence dividing beach from parking lot. His hands had left her before she’d even fully registered what he was doing, but the skin tingled in his wake.

“Nurse shoes, probably. Pope would know. Bet they got to wear them in morgues, too.” JJ exhaled another huge cloud of vape smoke. “Ten bucks says he’s already got his pair picked out, brand and model and all, for when he graduates college.”

Kie swung her feet. They really did feel better now that she was sitting. Except the next problem was that JJ never stood still this long, never small talked this long. Rarely showed up anywhere without another of the Pogues in tow. Had never noticed what shoes anybody was wearing.

She nudged his leg with her toe. “You wanna tell me what you came by to talk about, or do I need to steal beers from the kitchen to pry it out of you?”

“Can if you want. I never turn down beers.” He tucked his vape in his back pocket. “I gotta borrow some money.”

“Oh shit.” Her stomach sank. “Did they increase the payment schedule on your restitution again?” She dug in her bag, starting to count her tip money. “I can—” She lost the thread of the conversation, thumbing through bills until JJ nudged her ankle with the back of his wrist.

“Not the restitution.”

“What?” She frowned at him, then a funny smile played over her face. “Wait, you want to…borrow _money_. Like the thing that other people use to get items that don’t just magically show up in their pockets. Don’t tell me Pope has somehow managed to sex-ninja you into giving up shoplifting.”

JJ laughed. “Hasn’t scared me straight yet.”

“Ha ha,” she said dryly. She teetered a little on the fence, then tucked a foot under the lower bar to steady herself.

She shot JJ a sideways glance, waiting for the full story, but he just lounged, blowing a mosquito off his lip with a huff of air. He was the kind of lazy and content he usually only got when he was high, and that weirded her out even more than hearing him ask for money. Which she would have sworn he would only do in case of simultaneous volcano eruption and nuclear war, or a similar level of emergency.

“I might need to get that beer for myself,” she said, “to adjust to a world where JJ Maybank asks to borrow money.”

“Pfft,” he said, flicking a wrist against another mosquito. “Maybanks are always borrowing money. Just ask Geo, our repo man.”

“ _JJ_ Maybank,” she said. “Operative word: JJ.”

She thought she saw the gleam of a smile before he ducked his head, his bangs falling forward. But the only light was behind him, the single lightbulb outside the back door, so she couldn’t be sure.

“It isn’t anything I can swipe from around here,” he said. “Not even I’m good enough to shoplift the internet. Also, kinda need you to teach me how to buy shit online in cash.”

“Well, first, you can’t. You have to have a bank account and a debit card.” Which JJ had never had enough cash to bother with.

She knew, because she sometimes gave him rides to get money orders to pay the utilities on his dad’s place, or the Chateau. Probably someday they’d move on to getting money orders for his own place before she convinced him of the superior nature of bank accounts and online bill pay.

“Or maybe a Paypal account and I could send you money there and then…” she mused. “Anyway, you can’t do cash. What’s on the internet?” The realization kicked in a second later. “Wait, this is a sex thing, isn’t it?”

She burst out laughing.

“JJ, you want me to give you money to buy internet porn? Hard no.”

“Close.” He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and jiggled them so one hopped up out of the opening and he could catch it between his lips. “Sex toys.”

She snatched the cigarette out of his mouth. “Still no. And you just smoked, JJ, oh my God.” She tucked the cigarette behind her ear.

“They’re not for me.”

“Why do I feel like you’ve said _those_ words before,” she teased, “except I totally don’t beli—wait, oh.”

“Yeah. For Pope.”

He stole the cigarette out from behind her ear so smoothly she didn’t even feel it leave, flicked it over in his fingers, and then she heard the clink of his Zippo and the smoldering of tobacco before she even realized he’d reached for the lighter. Or that he’d gotten it back from Pope.

“Because I can gut it out,” he said on the inhale, “but there’s stuff that makes it gentler, easier to get you ready for sex.” He paused and exhaled a long stream of smoke, thicker than from the vape. Shrugged. “He wants to try it, and I don’t want to hurt him.”

She started digging in her purse, using the movement to cover a quick swipe to her eyes. “How much do you need?”

She glanced toward her car, not waiting for his response because he’d probably ask for twenty, but need fifty. She’d give him a hundred, just in case.

“I’ve got my laptop with me. Let me grab it and we’ll use The Wreck’s Wi-Fi from the patio, set you up a Paypal account and put some money in it, and then you can use my computer to browse whatever you need.” She tossed a smile his way. “I don’t have to tell you to clear the browser history, do I? No, you’re an eighteen-year-old boy, you’ve got that part covered. Just drop my laptop off before school tomorrow, hey?” She hopped down and he trailed along behind her.

Somehow, even just walking with him through the shadows felt intimate, though maybe that was just because they’d been talking about sex toys. Anybody who saw them would assume they were a couple, probably off to do far more illicit things than set up a Paypal account.

“Thanks, Kie,” he said as they got to the car. “This is cool of you. Pay you back as soon as old man McReedus sets me up with a bonus for fixing his vintage Suncruiser engine.”

She scoffed, digging in her backseat. “He’s always trying to get people to fix that engine. Good luck. And it’s not for you, it’s for Pope.”

“Whatever, you know you love me.” He pulled her into side hug, and pushed a smacking kiss to her head.

Goosebumps trickled down her neck, and she batted him away. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s set you up a Paypal account so you can buy some sex toys for your boy already.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Next up, Pope crosses a big one off the old bucket list. I might post a little extra this week because I'm kind of dying to get them all together already.


	11. Candlelight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: The song for this chapter is George Strait- Give It All We Got Tonight. Why are all the songs for this fic old school country the characters themselves would hate? No idea.

**Chapter 11: Candlelight**

“Look, I’m down for a mainland party, but I don’t understand why we didn’t bring the other Pogues.” The metal gangplank clanged under JJ’s boots as he flicked a glance across the crowded beach stretching out from the ferry terminal. Seagulls circled, eyeing the tourist’s leftovers. He could sympathize. Being on the mainland with even more rich people always made him feel just as desperate as those damn birds. Plus the seaweed over here smelled more rancid, like the currents were stagnant or something. Not as alive and fluid as they were on the island.

“John B is with Sarah,” Pope explained, leading JJ on a right turn out of the ferry terminal. “And Kie was too tired.”

JJ’s eyes narrowed. “Kiara Carrera has never in her life been too tired to party. Are you going awkward on her because you guys kissed and she blew your mind? It’s not her fault she’s hot, Pope.”

They were walking by a row of open-front shops, their racks and tables of wares spilling out all the way up to the boardwalk. JJ palmed a new pair of sunglasses into his pocket. His own sunglasses were bound to break or get lost sooner or later, and if his didn’t, John B’s would. Guy was shit at keeping track of his stuff. JJ didn’t get that. Forgetting what you owned was for rich people who had more shit than they needed. When you were a broke ass like them, you oughta look out for what you had.

JJ grabbed Pope’s hand, tugging him away from a broken board in the boardwalk he hadn’t seemed to notice, then releasing him as Pope led the way off the beach and up a street.

“Kie and I hung out yesterday,” Pope said. “We’re fine. It wasn’t a make-things-awkward kind of a kiss. It was a make-things-better kind of kiss.”

JJ stuffed his hands in his pockets, his thumb running over the deep lines of his name that he’d scratched into his lighter. He was never going to know what a Kiara Carrera kiss was like, but he could imagine how it would make a lot of things better.

Ever since it had happened, Pope had seemed softer, easier. The way JJ got after a long, sunny afternoon of fishing, or the first lung full of chronic smoke.

Pope led the way off the street and up a huge, circular driveway. JJ looked up— _way_ up—at the highrise.

“Okay, so you’re taking me to a mainland hotel to kill me without witnesses so you can marry Kie and have super smart, super hot babies together.” He nodded. “Makes sense.”

Pope gave him a look and closed his hand over JJ’s wrist, pressing his rosary bracelet gently into his skin so he could feel every bead.

JJ got that itchy, warm feeling under his skin that he always did when Pope touched him in public now. Like he couldn’t quite believe Pope was touching _him_. And also like everyone might be watching and somebody might start in after them if they had a problem with what they saw.

It felt dangerous, but JJ never pulled away. Pope would take it hard, if he did. And JJ would fight to protect this, if he had to. Simple as that.

“It’s you first,” Pope said quietly. “I’m not going anywhere, JJ.”

JJ smirked. “I wasn’t fishing for reassurance, but if there’s a blow job in it for me, I wouldn’t go crying into my pillow about it.”

Pope’s eyes gleamed. “Neither would I.” He tugged JJ inside.

JJ would have preferred not to have a boner while walking through a room with this many chandeliers and designer handbags, but after Pope said _that_ , he was pretty much screwed. He didn’t have anything on hand to shield the bulge beneath his zipper, so he just walked like he owned the place, Pope’s hand sliding from his wrist down to his hand as they waited at the bank of elevators.

A society wife decked with pearls and too much perfume got off the elevator, paused almost imperceptibly at the sight of Pope and JJ’s linked hands, then smiled warmly at them, stepping aside so they could take her now-vacant elevator car. Pope nodded shyly as they slid past her.

JJ kicked back against the rear rail of the car as Pope chose the button for the eleventh floor. That touron at the marina who had invited Pope to this party must be rich as fuck. This was the kind of place that would actually charge you the security deposit if you trashed your suite for a party.

Pope was staring up at the numbers, his fingers pushing at the cuticle on his thumb. His shoulders were lean and tight under his favorite deep blue short-sleeved button down, and now that they were alone, JJ was enjoying a real long look at the whole effect.

He’d always known Pope was good looking, as far back as he could remember. As they’d gotten older, he’d noticed…a little more often. JJ had known for a long time that his head turned just as fast for hot guys as it did for girls, and he’d known for just as long that in his family, you were only allowed to talk about the girls. He had been a little older when he’d started to realize most of the rest of the world didn’t mind men being together as much as Maybanks seemed to.

JJ had always liked to scuffle and wrestle, and he hadn’t noticed he liked to do it the most with Pope until one day, Kiara dragged him out back of the Chateau and demanded he stop picking on Pope. He hung his head and told her he’d stop, because when that girl asked him for something, he couldn’t tell her no. It wasn’t until he got that lonely little tug in his chest about how much he’d miss the horseplay, that he realized it was more.

On his side, probably not on Pope’s, he figured. At that point, JJ assumed pretty much everybody on Kildare Island was straight but him. But then the other boy’s hand lingered a few times. Slipped south a few times. After JJ had made an effort to stop his teasing and wrestling matches, _Pope_ started swiping JJ’s hat or tossing him in the water.

JJ had started to wonder. Hinted around, a few times. That day in Pope’s room, he’d finally stepped over the line because there’d been something in Pope’s eyes that called him across. The same curiosity, the same burning, half-hidden _hope_. The same glancing-away, dry-mouthed something he recognized in himself.

The same way Pope was looking back at him now, alone in their elevator and rising smoothly upward.

“Hey, how much do you want to go to this party?” JJ said, his mind already spinning ahead to where they might be able to find some privacy on the mainland. If they’d already taken possession of the gold, JJ could have afforded a room of their own here, like some kind of high roller. He could have ordered up an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne he could lick off Pope’s chest.

Pope shifted his weight to his opposite foot, looking back. “Let’s just stop in real quick, okay? If you don’t like it, we can go on and do something else.” He smiled, a little bit too wide.

Pope hadn’t said if the touron who invited him was a man or a woman. Was it somebody Pope was interested in? JJ’d thought he was pretty much done with experimenting after the Kiara kiss, but they hadn’t actually talked about not leaving their relationship open anymore.

The skin between JJ’s shoulders prickled and he schooled his face. Loosened his jaw, smoothed his forehead, and added the warmth of a fuck-it smile to his eyes. When you watched people lie as often as JJ had, you learned a thing or two about how to make it look like the real thing.

If more experiments were what Pope needed to keep unwinding, to get more comfortable in his knowledge of himself and sit better in his own skin, then JJ was going to make sure he had that. He wasn’t going to go all jealous Maybank, punching holes in the walls and roaring, “Why the fuck were you laughing with _him_?” Grabbing for the scissors and fistfuls of hair.

JJ caught himself clenching his fists and shook the tension out of his arms before Pope could read it in him.

Why hadn’t it felt this bad when Pope kissed Kiara? If anything, the jealousy went the other way, wanting to know what Pope had felt when her hands reached for him. Imagining himself there between the two of them, welcomed into their kiss. He’d had feverish, confusing dreams every night since Pope had told him. Gripping himself and coming hot into the sheets almost immediately upon waking.

For all the sexy, throat-searing moments in those dreams, the image that stuck with him through the daylight hours was Kiara’s light-brown hand, soft on Pope’s cheek. Holding him. It settled in JJ’s belly and he ached for it with an intensity that made no goddamn sense. No sane person would want to see a beautiful woman cuddling his boyfriend. Maybe he was a voyeur?

Actually, that would make sense. He was pretty fond of porn.

But then, why wasn’t it one of the kinkier moments that his mind couldn’t stop replaying?

His thoughts were interrupted by Pope pulling a key card out of his pocket. Why wasn’t he knocking? This touron had given Pope his own hotel room key? Oh, this was definitely a hook up invite. Nobody slid a fucking room key in your pocket to invite you to the kegger kind of party. But Pope probably wouldn’t know what a room key “party” really meant, which explained why he’d innocently invited his _boyfriend_ along. JJ’s hand shot out and he grabbed Pope’s shoulder before he could walk into something.

“Whoa, uh, Pope—”

But then he caught sight of the inside of the room. It was quiet and empty, the light golden and flickering, which didn’t make sense until he saw all the candles. They were everywhere, lined up on every surface. His fingers jerked tight on Pope’s shoulder, digging into his tendon. When he winced, JJ released him immediately, but he couldn’t school the tension out of his body this time before Pope saw it.

Who the fuck was this guy sliding room keys in Pope’s pocket and inviting him to “party” and lighting candles for him? Jealous Maybank was revving hot in JJ’s veins and he couldn’t quite think past it back to his better self, the one that knew Pope needed the freedom to experiment. 

Apparently he wasn’t a voyeur, because the idea of this mystery guy’s hand on Pope’s cheek, or Pope’s _anything_ made JJ want to break that hand right the fuck off.

“Can you give me a second?” JJ gritted out. “Wait here in the hall, though, don’t go in without me. Please.”

Each word took an effort because he couldn’t think right now. He needed to call Kie, needed her reasonable voice to talk him down and tell him how to handle this. Tell him what Pope needed and yell at JJ until he did the right thing, because he knew he’d listen to her. He was about to pop off and do something dumb, otherwise. He could feel it in the heat shooting down his shoulder, filling his bicep and clenching his fist, aching for that satisfying crash of pain that went up his knuckles when they collided with someone’s face. That touron’s face, and whatever smarmy smile he probably had on sad face when he slipped that fancy fucking room key into JJ’s boyfriend’s pocket.

“Just come inside.” Pope glanced down the hall toward a group of people getting out of the elevator. “We can talk there.” He was looking at JJ with concern, pulling at his hand and JJ couldn’t stop looking at those _candles_.

But he forgot sometimes how strong Pope was, all those mornings in the school’s weight room that he said helped with his anxiety, because then JJ was being towed inside the room, his whole body stiff. Well, fuck it, this was happening. As soon as he rounded the corner of the entryway he’d be able to see the rest of the room and whoever was waiting on that bed for Pope. No time to call Kie to calm him down, and who cared anyway because even if it wasn’t the best idea to demolish this boyfriend-stealing touron, it was going to feel goddamn _great,_ and JJ was happy to deal with the consequences later.

He took a bounding step forward, putting Pope behind him, and…there was no one there.

The door fell shut behind them with the whoosh CLANG of the spring bar, a distinctly industrial sound at odds with the deliberately romantic setup of the bedroom.

JJ threw a glance into the darkened bathroom, but there was just a glass shower, a huge tub, and no one in there, either.

He spun toward Pope. “Who invited you to this? Why aren’t they in here?”

Pope was starting to smile. “Wow, Maybank. You’re not usually this slow to catch on.”

JJ looked back at the candles. Pulled his hat off his head, its frayed edges tickling his thumb, settled it back on more firmly. Looked at Pope. “Is this…for _us_?”

They were not fancy hotel people, not a couple of romantic candlelight kind of guys. JJ felt odd, like he needed to burp or something. Even if they were those kind of people—or even if Pope wanted to see if maybe they were or would be, once they got the gold—how had he afforded it _now_? JJ felt like he should check him for surgical scars, make sure he hadn’t sold any organs off to pay the bill. Fuck, this was so not a Motel 6. There was a bathtub with _jets_ in the other room.

He frowned. “How did you even get this? Don’t all the fancy hotels want you to be twenty-five or some shit to book a room?”

“Got a fake ID.” Pope turned to face JJ, took a step closer. He didn’t look nervous, which was even weirder. Pope always looked nervous.

“You, Pope Heyward,” JJ clarified. “Got a fake ID. That’s not even for drinking?”

Pope reached in his pocket, and slipped a small bottle of lube into JJ’s hand. “I want you to be my first time,” he murmured.

JJ went still. He caught Pope’s wrist with his free hand, hanging on because he needed a minute before he could—talk? Or respond, or—really anything. Except his mind was a huge stretch of blank _what?_

After a second, trepidation started to creep into Pope’s expression. “You hate the electric candles, don’t you? Hotel policy doesn’t allow open flames. I thought since they flickered like real ones it might be sort of the same, but they’re dumb, aren’t they?”

“Bro, that is not the problem,” JJ said. He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have to buy your _own_ candles to make your own first time romantic. You should have told me.” He released Pope’s wrist and gestured at the room. “I could have set this up for you.”

Pope smiled. “JJ, the candles aren’t for me.”

“What?” JJ felt his face twitch, smiling a little off-balance like he was waiting for the punchline. “Pope, the first time I had sex, it was in the back of some truck that didn’t belong to either of us, in the vacant lot near the Boneyard. Chuck Hanson saw my bare ass when he walked by.”

“I know.”

“And the first time I had sex with a guy, it was on a blanket in his mom’s garage.”

Pope squeezed his arm. “I wanted it to be special for you. You deserve better than a blanket in a garage, JJ.”

JJ didn’t know what to say. He forgot sometimes, that Pope saw him differently than everybody else did. Sometimes in ways he didn’t quite get himself. Right now this all felt like he was surfing and there was a really big wave coming, the anticipation of lift filling his whole chest.

He flipped the lube over in his hand, caught it. Cleared his throat. “Okay, but dude, you don’t have to get a fake ID every time we have sex, all right?”

“I know.” Pope eased a little closer, so the scent of him was part of the air.

JJ didn’t give a single fuck about candles, electric or otherwise. But even so, getting them gave him that queer, almost guilty feeling in his belly. Like when he was a really little kid and his mom had remembered to buy him a teddy bear, even though she was dead drunk that whole week.

It was one of his favorite things about Pope, how he was never drunk, and he never forgot anything.

Pope reached up, touched his cheek. It wasn’t a place most people usually ever touched him, especially not…gently.

JJ ducked his head, laughed. “Fuck. You’re seducing me, aren’t you?”

Pope nodded, and he didn’t look nervous. His eyes were dark and intense, and he looked exactly like what he was, which was sexy as hell, and smart as fuck.

Suddenly, JJ was nervous.

He was the one who had done this before. The one who was supposed to be able to make it good for Pope and not scare him off sex forever. Or at least, sex with a man. Pope was bi, and if he had sex with Kie, he’d probably have a grand old time. _It was a make-things-better kind of kiss_ , he’d said.

JJ swallowed. Maybanks rarely made anything better, unless the “anything” in question was the profitability of a drinking establishment, or an engine attached to a nautical craft.

JJ had a sudden and even-more-intense-than-earlier urge to call Kie.

Kiara Carrera wouldn’t fuck up Pope’s first time. Kie never fucked up anything, whether it was an english quiz, a roundhouse cutback on a wave, or a relationship.

“Is that okay?” Pope’s thumb was tracing JJ’s cheek.

JJ’s thoughts were whirling. Heyward had said being a good man was a choice, no matter what your family was like. You started with the small things and worked up to the big ones. Problem was, Pope was the biggest of possible things. And JJ needed about twenty years of small ones to be sure he could do right by Pope fucking Heyward’s first time. Except Pope had said it straight out.

_I want you to be my first time._

And JJ wouldn’t want him to pick anyone else. God help him, God _forgive_ him, but he would not.

“JJ.”

Pope’s quiet voice cut right through the confusion of his thoughts and he started arranging his face into a cocky grin, but Pope had already stepped forward and pulled him into his arms.

“Whoa, unexpected PDA,” JJ said, something about the gentleness of the hold making him twitchy and a little sick way down in his belly. “Thought we were here to get down and dirty, Chief.”

“It doesn’t matter what we do or don’t do in here,” Pope said fiercely, his chin pressing into JJ’s shoulder hard enough it hurt a little. “You’ve already got me, JJ. You’ve always got me.”

“Give a guy a candle or two and you go sappy as hell, shit,” JJ muttered, shifting his weight in the hug. He tossed the lube onto the bed and put his hands on Pope’s back, and the curve of his muscles along his spine slipped into JJ’s mind, quiet and solid. Familiar. He dropped his forehead to Pope’s shoulder, just for a second, and his head felt so heavy he left it there.

Pope wouldn’t ask why JJ’s head was so fucked up tonight. He wouldn’t ask why JJ was weirding out and messing up his perfect first time, when he’d done nothing but think about getting to do this for weeks. Guilty months before that, waking to dreams of his friend he wasn’t supposed to be having and trying to resist sliding his hand under the sheets once he woke up.

Usually failing.

His hands tightened, Pope’s shirt bunching in his fingers, and one thumb slipped under to the skin beneath. Pope’s breath broke against JJ’s ear as he snatched in a little huff of air. He loved that about Pope, how he was way the fuck into it, whatever they were doing. How he shivered, and gasped, and sometimes even whimpered a little.

JJ turned his face further into his boyfriend’s neck, taking a little nibble just because he was there. Pope jolted like he’d plugged him into a live wire, trembling and pressing closer, and JJ grinned and traced the pulse beating in his neck with his tongue. Pope was the hottest person he’d ever been with, by far. Nothing like the girls at the Boneyard, the way they smiled at him with a little daring in their eyes, like JJ was a risk they knew they shouldn’t take. The way they always kissed so distracted, like they were already plotting out in their heads how they were going to tell their friends about their surfer bad boy adventure.

Pope edged their bodies a little closer together, not asking, but hoping in that sweet way he did. JJ ducked both his hands inside his shirt, running his hands up Pope’s slim back because his skin was always this perfect texture of smooth, and okay, maybe JJ wanted to make him do that trembly-goosebumpy thing again. He got a little moan, too, and that made him have to kiss Pope, and somehow they ended up on the bed with JJ on the bottom, his hands tangled up under Pope’s shirt and Pope’s pulling at his hair, yanking him closer.

That put a sweet burn in the roots of his hair and made him want to growl and thrust and _fuck_ , now he was hard.

“JJ?” Pope pulled away, his eyes that dark kind of intense, but almost pleading that made JJ’s heart stumble over itself. He caught the other man with a sprawled hand on his neck, stroking in front of his ear with one thumb. Pope exhaled, leaning into the hand the way he sometimes leaned against JJ’s back when they were on the bike, riding deep through the woods.

“So you know the whole bottom and top thing?”

JJ’s heart rate became very interested in this conversation. “Might have heard of it.”

“I mean, obviously I don’t know which I am, yet. I think…I dunno but I mean, I wanna try both before I decide.”

JJ’s hips gave a little involuntary jerk. “Uh,” he said. He usually liked to be the one doing the fucking. But if Pope might like both, if it was _Pope_ behind him, pressing deep into him…

JJ couldn’t breathe, and he fumbled at the front of his pants, ripping open his zipper and yanking twisted elastic away from where it was throttling his hardening cock. Apparently his top/bottom preferences were another one of the many things that turned out to be different with his boyfriend than they had been with other people.

“Yeah, man,” he managed, spots dancing in front of his eyes from lack of oxygen. “Whatever you’re into, I’m easy.”

“JJ…” Pope’s hand slid over the front of his now-exposed boxers, the fabric worn thin and transferring the heat of his palm so clearly that JJ could feel every wrinkle of cotton against the swollen head of his cock. “Oh wow, you’re…” Pope’s hand closed, and something about the firmness of his grip made it easier to think again.

“You want to try topping?” JJ said hoarsely. “Tonight, I mean?”

Pope shook his head, so fast and vigorously that JJ almost chuckled, but then pulled him down into his shoulder in a quick hug. “Would it be okay this time if you just did it?” Pope whispered, his face hidden in JJ’s shirt. “Just because you’ve done it before and I don’t know if I—”

“You asking me to fuck you?” JJ ducked his head, finding Pope and kissing him fiercely enough that they rolled over on the bed, Pope’s hand getting caught between them and JJ’s erection jumping in his palm as his shorts slipped down. “Because yes.”

He slid his hand down the back of Pope’s shorts, smooth skin and tight ass, skimming his thumb along the cleft. Pope clenched against the unexpected touch, then pushed back toward him with some kind of little deep-throated moan that fucked JJ’s head all the way up. Tension rolled down his body, his cock shoving up against Pope’s grip and rubbing against the other man’s fly. He dipped his thumb deeper.

“Oh God,” Pope said, dropping his head into JJ’s shoulder. “Oh God oh God oh God.” He thrust hard, fabric bunching and catching between them as his erection ground against JJ’s hip. “I want you to fuck me,” he whimpered. “I want it so bad.”

JJ’s eyes went blurry. He threw a hand out, digging around the mattress for the little bottle of lube and then it was shirts flying and belts getting ripped open and cursing over knotted shoelaces. Pope crawled, naked, back up his body and JJ hitched him hard against his chest with one arm, unwilling to let go even long enough to deal with the lube. Instead, he flicked open the lube with one thumb and flipped it upside down to drizzle into his palm.

The whites of Pope’s eyes flashed, doing that wide-eyed and vulnerable thing they’d done after JJ took the fall for him about the boat. When he’d showed up at Midsommers and Pope begged him to let him tell the cops the truth. It was the way he looked on the rare occasion he didn’t know what to do and it made JJ want to do _anything_ , every fucking thing in the world for him.

“Kiss me,” JJ murmured.

Pope did, his tongue almost frantic when it found JJ’s, full of all the heated tension and desire and nervousness currently humming through his muscles. JJ slipped a hand between their bodies, slicking his palm over Pope’s tip and all the way down his thick shaft. His boyfriend moaned into his mouth, jacking up into his hand, and JJ slipped lower. Palming his balls and pressing a quick thumb to the secret spot beneath that made Pope’s thighs clench and slip wide over JJ’s hips.

JJ shifted his grip, reaching around from the side to skim the rise of Pope’s ass, slowing as his fingers dipped deeper and his boyfriend gasped and twitched. JJ had never been especially into virgins, but there was something a little mind-bending about knowing he was the first to touch Pope this way. It made him feel quiet in his head somehow, his shoulders settling a little broader in the bed. He nuzzled his slick thumb a little closer, stroking Pope’s rim softly.

“That feels… _oh_.”

“Better than you thought, right?”

“It feels kinda…wrong.” Pope squirmed, panting. “But then…wow.” His voice went tight on the last word. “JJ…oh damn.” He reached between them, grabbing both their cocks in one hand. JJ pulsed thicker, and he ground his teeth, his fingers starting to shake as Pope jerked them one long stroke together. Pope’s dick was still slick with the lube and they slid together and it felt way too good to concentrate on anything else.

“Okay?” JJ pressed a little, then nudged Pope’s legs apart with his knee.

“ _Ung_.” Pope relaxed into him, his weight easing onto JJ. “Yes _oh_.”

JJ slid a finger into him, capturing his lips at the same time and kissing him with a wildness that was rioting through his whole head. _This_. Oh fuck, this was perfect.

Pope tightened around him, then eased. “That’s good. That’s not bad at all, okay.”

“Oh, it’s gonna get a whole lot better.” JJ bumped him with a shoulder, using his body weight to roll Pope under him on the bed. His legs sprawled wide as JJ crouched between them and adjusted their position. He played the fingers of his free hand down Pope’s cock, working him from behind at the same time.

Pope yelp-moaned, his abs clenching and his hands flailing out, fisting in the sheets. “Oh God. Wow, um…”

JJ wrapped his hand around the base of Pope’s erection, dropping his head to Pope’s stomach. He teased the sensitive skin around Pope’s rim, then slipped a second finger in, smooth and easy. Instead of tensing, his boyfriend relaxed even more, melting against him and making a quiet huff of pleasure. JJ’s throat caught. The first time he’d played like this, it had hurt more than a little, way more than he’d been expecting, though he’d ground his teeth in silence rather than admit his inexperience. But Pope just…trusted him.

JJ slowed down even more, trailing his thumb up Pope’s cock, determined to make this the best fucking thing his friend had ever felt. He couldn’t rush and mess this up, not with Pope’s whole naked body defenseless and relaxed in his arms.

“Okay?” he murmured, pressing deeper with his fingers.

When Pope nodded, he slid out, then back in, keeping it slow.

“Oh, that’s weird. Very weird.” Pope’s face spasmed. “Um.”

“I know. But let me try something.” JJ pressed deep, and Pope’s whole chest bowed.

“Holy—“ His breath hissed in on a moan. “Oh God is that—”

“Thank fuck for the prostate, hmm?” JJ grinned wickedly, his confidence rebounding at his boyfriend’s obvious enjoyment. He gave Pope’s dick a long, slippery tug as he started working him more thickly from the back. His boyfriend’s toes curled and his breath shuddered in and out of his chest.

“JJ, oh shit, I want—I’m ready.” His head fell back and his eyelids fluttered.

“Oh, I’m not close to done.” JJ reached for his backpack, digging out one of the toys he had hidden in there.

He rolled Pope up on his side, scooting in behind him as he nibbled just beneath his ear.

“You’re gonna lay right there and let me do dirty things to you for a long, long time. And _then_ I’m gonna fuck you.”

Pope squeaked and nodded, the trembling of it running down his whole body, warm against JJ’s. He smiled and snuggled his face into the back of Pope’s neck, kissing the skin there as he toyed with him, letting him get used to being played with, and how good it could feel to be slowly stretched, to be massaged way down deep. He only gave him a pulse or two with the vibrator this time, watching the tip of Pope’s cock swell and weep as he kept him on the edge of orgasm without letting him go all the way over.

Pope’s gasps took on a deep, growling tone and his scent changed. Got spicier, darker. JJ hadn’t known you could smell arousal, but it was some heady stuff. By the time he rolled a condom onto himself, his head was swimming with it and his whole body was thrumming, twitching with the need to thrust. He could feel it in the roots of his fucking _hair_ , how bad he wanted this.

“Please,” Pope said, tugging at him until JJ came around and up onto his chest. He cupped JJ’s throat. “I want to be able to kiss you, too.”

JJ nodded, holding his eyes as he lined up his tip. “You okay?”

“Please…” Pope exhaled at exactly the same moment, his eyes rolling back as JJ pushed inside. His cheekbones went tight, his whole face changing, then sighing.

JJ slid deeper, not breathing as the tight clasp of Pope surrounded him. Pope’s arms pulled him closer, that scent like a drug, washing over JJ in waves. The golden light of the candles was everywhere he looked, pinpricks of light like flickering fireflies. Every one of them something Pope had bought and carried here to make him feel like something special. It put that weird guilty-full feeling under his ribs. He closed his eyes, resting his head against Pope’s collarbone as he pushed in the last inch, his cock aching in its tight grip and Pope’s hands cradling his back.

His chest went tight and he cough-choked his next breath. Dammit, sex wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be hot and wild, and not make you dizzy. Wasn’t supposed to feel like gravity taking you, golden lights shining all around. Wasn’t supposed to be the scent of your best friend and the dirtiest, most beautiful things you’d ever imagined feeling. His eyes burned and he squeezed them closed, afraid to move, or speak, or even be here, doing this.

Had they locked the door? Had Pope really paid for the room, or was the hotel going to realize they couldn’t afford it and kick them out?

“I love you,” Pope rumbled, and JJ realized Pope’s hands were shaking, clutching him ever closer. “Oh God, JJ, I didn’t know anything could feel like this and it’s whoa and fuck, _fuck_ , I really want more. Can you—”

JJ flexed, driving the head of his cock deeper and tilting his hips to hit just right so Pope’s words squeaked off into a gasp.

This was Pope’s first time, he suddenly remembered with a flash. He was the one who was probably freaking out, needing the reassurance of candles and kissing and all that. JJ lifted his head, but Pope’s eyes had fallen closed, a surprised smile creasing his mouth. “Oh damn, please do that again,” he whispered.

JJ pulled Pope’s knee up next to his hip and started jacking into him in slow, thick pulses that were driving his cock crazy but had the other man squirming on him, jerking and panting for more.

Wanting him. Wanting more of _him_.

JJ couldn’t stop, never wanted to come. Just wanted to give more and deeper and harder to Pope, watching him come apart and drinking his every shiver like it was the best compliment JJ had ever gotten. And at the same time, it felt so, so good, the swollen head of his cock clasped so tightly and perfectly safe and he wanted to be _held_ like this. Every day, every hour, all the time.

His arms quaked and he fell onto Pope, the other man’s cock grinding slick and swollen between their bellies as JJ started to lose control, rutting deep and hard up into his boyfriend. He grunted, the sensation drowning his whole brain, exploding with it. It went on and on and when he came, it was the sharp spike of almost-pain in the midst of a whole sea of pleasure.

He drove deep, fumbling between them for Pope’s cock and gripping it, the frenzied, slick tugs a perfect match for the insanity of what was exploding out of him as he battered deep and hard, coming with a growled shout for long, time-poised moments. Warmth hit his wrist and then Pope’s fingers were digging into his back, his body clenched as he finished in JJ’s grip, letting himself be held and fucked all at once and groaning with the pleasure of it.

He went slack before JJ did, and JJ had to gulp a couple of breaths to gather himself, and then it turned out he couldn’t get up after all. His abs twitched and failed, and he slumped forward onto Pope, squirming until he could bury his head in Pope’s damp neck, huffing in that brain-twisting scent of friend and arousal and sex and sweat. JJ was shuddering, shaking with maybe the exertion and maybe just the everything of wow, _that._

Pope twitched as he started to doze, and JJ finally managed to drag himself upright, ditching the condom and then sprawling on the blessedly cool sheets at Pope’s side.

Pope opened one eye at the movement of the mattress. Then he smiled.

JJ ducked his head, fighting to keep his grin from getting goofy big. “Hey, that wasn’t too bad, newbie. Figures you’d be a prodigy.”

“That’s what you said about blowjobs,” Pope said smugly.

JJ laughed, pulling a pillow down toward himself because it was easier than moving his whole, suddenly-very-heavy body.

Pope flopped onto his back, arms spread wide. “I thought it was supposed to hurt,” he said, wonderingly.

“It’s sex, Pope.” JJ grinned. “It only hurts if you’re doing it wrong.”

Pope shot him a narrow look. “How the hell do you just happen to have a _vibrating dildo_ in your backpack?”

“Can’t leave it around the Chateau,” JJ said. “John B found that thing, it’d end up hidden in my cereal box for sure.”

Pope snickered, rolling up onto his side and looking at him with warm eyes. “JJ.”

“Hmm?”

“I liked that. A lot. I think I’m a bottom.”

“Hate to break it to you, Chief, but you like everything, far as I can tell.” JJ smirked and fluffed his pillow, propping his head up a little higher. “You’re a secret sex fiend, dude. Everybody thought it was me, but nah.”

Pope giggled.

“Man, did you just giggle?”

“No!”

“That was _definitely_ a giggle.”

Pope kicked at him. “Shut up. Or I’m going to tell everyone you shout Hannah Montanas’s name when you come.” He sighed, gustily. “I can’t believe I’m not a virgin anymore. It kind of felt like it would go on forever, somehow.”

JJ grinned, feeling better than he had when they’d found the gold. “What do you want to do now, now that I’ve made a man out of you?”

Pope glanced around. “We’ve got this place all night. Wanna get drunk and watch the porn channels? Also, maybe have sex again?”

JJ could only stare. “Fuck, I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: More of the history of JJ’s teddy bear in my other story, mysteriously titled The Teddy Bear.
> 
> We’re headed into the moment you’ve all been waiting for, but it’s a BIG one, so it’s going to take a few chapters to get all the way through it. Buckle up, it’s gonna be a wild ride!


	12. Experiment

**Chapter 12: Experiment**

It was a long weekend, fucking finally. On the first day of freedom, JJ celebrated with a cold beer and the HMS Pogue, the sea air swirling hot over the deck. He and John B fished, and Kie read some book called Educated, which he thought was pretty much ruining the point of having time off from school. At least until she said it was about religious cults and asshole dads, which sounded actually a little bit interesting. He snuck a peek when she was driving the boat to their next spot, but the words swam and wriggled across the page like they always did, and he gave up before the paragraph was over.

That lipstick red bikini she was wearing was plenty of education for him.

It sucked that Pope had to work today, but he’d be around after sunset. And JJ was feeling good. Easy in his skin, the sun warm on his hair, his favorite people around. He’d forgotten to bring food, but John B gave him half his slowly-thawing freezer burrito, and Kie popped one of her earbuds in his ear while he ate so he could hear some new song she liked. She said it was brilliantly politically satirical and he thought it just had good guitar. She didn’t throw a line in the water, but her hunch about the interaction between the tide, the coming rain storm, and a unique scoop of shoreline led to a major net full of fish. Enough that they sold it off to Ginny at the docks for enough cash to keep them in beer all week.

Life was very good today, in JJ’s estimation.

They didn’t come back to shore until late afternoon, when John B had to run off and drive a little Uber in the van. He’d been picking up rides for extra cash ever since they’d bribed the island’s mechanic with a blunt to sign off on the VW’s mechanical soundness. It was flexible and quick, and he shuffled it in amongst all their other odd jobs around the island. JJ was still trying to sort out how to do the same with only his dirt bike and the HMS Pogue for transportation.

The engine of the bus faded away up the driveway as JJ followed Kiara into the Chateau, the only sound the chirping of cicadas through the screens on the windows.

“I’m gonna make a sandwich, want one?” She was winding her hair into a topknot as she headed for the kitchen, the cutoffs she’d thrown on over her bikini hanging low on her hips.

JJ glanced after her, his eyes lingering. He liked when she threw her hair up like that, all careless like she only did when she was crazy busy at work, or when it was just her and the Pogues. Lazy Sundays, her hanging around with bare feet and laughing a lot. At school and around town, she always kept her hair loose and nicely wavy and stuff.

He kinda liked being part of the careless topknot group instead.

“Sure.” He nodded back toward the screened-in porch. “I’m gonna go smoke first.”

She pivoted in the doorway, tying a bandanna around her hair the same red as her top. “Since when does anybody go outside to smoke?”

He slipped his hands in his pockets, fidgeting with his loose change. “Probably better not to make the Chateau smell like weed, in case DCS makes a visit.”

“John B’s eighteen now. They could give a shit.”

He shrugged, glancing away. “Dunno. The Heywards never smoke inside.”

“Uh, because they don’t smoke.” A smile tugged at her lips as she gave him a funny look.

He smirked, because he’d found the best way to throw off Kiara’s radar for when anybody was getting emotional was to laugh. “You don’t think Heyward’s got a stash? Guy can get his hands on anything. He’s probably smoking better shit than we do.”

She laughed. “Yeah, probably. You want bologna or ham?”

“I’ll take whatever’s still good, if John B hasn’t ate it all already.”

She disappeared into the kitchen and he sat down on the porch, kicking his boots up onto a stool and letting the smoke billow out of his mouth into the still afternoon air.

Kie came out a few minutes later, bumping the door out of her way with a hip. She had one sandwich stuffed in her mouth, the other sandwich in a hand, and her second hand holding a beer. “Mmmff,” she said, and he took the second sandwich so she could take hers out of her mouth and chew.

She dropped into the chair next to his, letting her flip flops slip off her feet. “Last beer until we bring our haul of fish money to your cousin at the liquor store.” She gave a triumphant little shimmy in her chair at their beer money bonanza. “Wanna share?”

“Sure.” He took the beer from her and set his lighter against the edge, levering the top off and letting it bounce down to the porch floor somewhere as he took a healthy chug.

“Hey, it’s not sharing if you drink it all.” She swiped the bottle back.

The sea breeze drifted in through the screens as they ate, her stealing a quick hit off his joint before he put it out. She set her half-finished sandwich down on her knee, waving away a mosquito that had made it inside before she said, “Hey, so how are things with Pope? He seems better, lately.”

JJ shrugged. “He hasn’t kicked me to the curb yet.”

He glanced over at her. She was busy dabbing a smear of mayo off her lip, squinting against the lowering sun. A smile was tugging at him, and he wanted to tell the candles-in-a-hotel-room story, but he wasn’t sure that was a thing you were supposed to talk about to people—he’d never had a real, actually-dating boyfriend or girlfriend, and John B never talked about what he did with Sarah, but he knew Kie would get it, that she’d think it was as funny as he did.

“He got me a hotel room with candles. Can you believe that? Fucking battery operated fake ones, so it wasn’t against ‘hotel policy.’” He laughed. “It was the most Pope thing ever. At least the most Pope thing since he bought that fancy calculator even though every phone has a calculator and he was all like, it doesn’t _calculate_ enough, JJ—wait, are you crying?” He stopped, staring as she looked up to the ceiling, swiping the heel of her hand quickly against her eye. “I thought you would laugh, not cry.” He frowned. “C’mon, it’s classic Pope, right? Thinking I’m the kind of guy who wants candles.”

He gestured at his fraying cargo sorts, the new rip in the pocket where he’d caught them on a fishing hook today and Kie hadn’t been able to detangle him, so John B just yanked the hook out.

Her eyes were still watering a little bit when she looked back at him. “You deserve candles, JJ,” she said, her voice quiet and without a hint of their normal teasing.

He shifted, annoyed that she hadn’t gotten how funny it was. And a little weirded out that she and Pope had said almost exactly the same thing about it.

“You and Pope have been hanging out way too much.” He gestured at the heel of her sandwich. “Are you going to finish that?”

She handed over the remains of her sandwich and ran a finger under her eye again, clearing her throat.

“You’ve got black shit. Right there.” He gestured at her left side and she swiped away the smudge of eye makeup. He finished her sandwich in two wolfing bites.

He looked out at the ocean, pulling out his pack of cigarettes. When his Zippo sparked to life he stared at the flame for a second, thinking about the golden glow of those candles. How Pope had wanted him to even have the right kind of _light_ for their first time together. And the nicest hotel room he’d seen in his whole fucking life.

He wondered if a guy had ever given Kie candles. He glanced sideways, but she was absorbed in her phone, her bare feet pulled up and propped on the edge of her chair. She wasn’t a virgin, he’d known that for years, but he wasn’t sure if she’d actually ever told them who’d made the cut. Most of the guys around the island looked at her with some combination of awe, fear, or straight-up boner. But she’d never kept a boyfriend around for too long before cutting him loose. Always scoffing or rolling her eyes when asked about them, like she was not too fucking impressed.

Which meant she’d probably never gotten candles, battery-operated or otherwise.

He shrugged his shirt straighter on his shoulders, restless for the first time all afternoon. He took a deeper drag on his cigarette, pissed off and not sure why. Probably he was just bored because Kie was ignoring him. He swiped her phone, palming it so fast that the query in the search bar was left half-typed.

“Hey!”

“Colleges in New Zealand?” he read off the screen. “The fuck, Kie? What happened to riding camels?”

She looked away, slumping a little further into the chair. “People go to college. So what? I was just looking.”

“So I thought you wanted to travel the world. We’ll for sure have the gold in hand by the end of the summer. What would you want to go to college for if you didn’t have to?”

This long weekend off from school, from boring words and squinting at squirrelly letters…it was like heaven. He was so close to a school-free life that he could taste it, and Kie was thinking about going back on _purpose_?

It was fine if you were Pope, he guessed, and you really liked that sort of thing, but Kie didn’t like learning about shit. She liked _doing_ shit. Like beach cleanups and starting recycling programs. Doing the kind of stuff where you could see the difference when you were done. She was always bitching about people on social media who were all talk and no game and as far as he could tell, she already knew as much about the environment as anyone would need to.

She hadn’t answered. He kicked at her foot, passing her phone back like a peace offering.

“What.”

She scowled. “Nothing. I can do whatever I want, JJ, okay? We’re about to be filthy rich. Who cares if it’s college or traveling?”

“No one,” he said, and she flinched a little, looking at him with wide eyes that reminded him of an animal on a Disney movie. “I didn’t mean it like that, don’t give me the Bambi eyes. I meant yeah, you can do whatever you want. You’re smart, you can go to college fifteen different times if you feel like it. But you were always stoked on traveling, and now you’re acting sketchy, so what gives.”

She rested her chin on her upbent knees, picking at the polish on her toenails. “I don’t know. I’m not as excited about it anymore. Maybe I didn’t really want to do it and it just sounded like the kind of thing I should want, I don’t know.” She turned her head, laying her cheek on her knees and hugging them, her face turned so he couldn’t see it. “I feel like life is starting to move really fast, lately. Like it’s passing me by and I don’t know how to grab onto it anymore.”

She turned her head, looking his way now.

“Have you ever felt like that?”

“No, not really.” He shrugged, his cheek twitching as he flicked his ashes into the old coffee can by the door.

Time _was_ going fast, though. It had just been Christmas and now it was already spring, the sun rising hotter every day. Soon, summer would be over, and Pope would be packing his bags for the Ivy Leagues, and in all the ways that mattered, that would be it.

“All of you guys can’t wait for life outside the island,” he burst out. “And I just…don’t even care about everything out there.” The mainland was so fucking boring. Suits and highways and corn fields. He didn’t get it, he really didn’t. “I want Pope and the Pogues and my surfboard. Maybe go fishing in the afternoons and take a nap on the boat.”

He slanted her a look, her hair thrown into a knot and her bikini still damp from their last swim. He wanted a whole life of days like today, and he didn’t understand who wouldn’t. He tried to force his mind past the warm coconut scent of her sunscreen and into the future. What _would_ he want?

“Maybe someday make a few bucks fishing or fixing boats, and get a place of my own way out on the marsh with no neighbors and its own dock.” He dropped his cigarette into the can, sitting up. “And I mean, the gold’s about to come through, so I’ll never have to worry about jobs or school or what the hell ever. That doesn’t really even change it, except I’ll have a sweet ass boat tied up to my dock instead of a rusty old two-stroke outboard. I feel like all you guys can’t wait for your lives to start and I just want exactly what I’ve got.” He dropped his head, pulling off his borrowed hat for a second to scrub a restless hand through his hair. “I dunno what the fuck is wrong with me, but I don’t care, okay?”

He was a deadbeat. That was what she was probably thinking. John B had always been a dreamer, a new idea every week for where he could go and what he could do to get rich quick. Pope had always been headed for the Ivy Leagues, watching all his autopsy shows with a notebook at his side and wide, thirsty eyes. Kie had always looked out at the horizon and seen a whole world hurting and just waiting for someone to care about it as much as she did.

He was the only one who was never going to leave the fucking island.

“C’mon, JJ, like it’s so messed up to be happy with what you have.” She was teasing, but there was an odd catch to her voice and she looked away for a second, tugging at her bikini top.

He scowled down at his lap, his knee starting to jiggle. Was that catch in her voice because she’d noticed? How his eyes lingered on her hair and he remembered every color of bikini she ever wore, even when he couldn’t remember what he ate for breakfast.

She was his best friend. Of course she knew he was lying that he didn’t want anything other than what he already had.

Which was already so much more than he’d ever had before. He slept at the Chateau every night ever since the nuclear fallout when he sunk the Phantom. Between him and John B, they almost always had food around, even the last few days before payday. For the whole rest of the spring and summer, he had the smartest man he’d ever known to spoil the fuck out of him with golden candlelight and mind-bending blowjobs, and to build him weird little additions to his bike motor that made it go way the hell faster and somehow magically quieter, too.

He had beer money, and a boat to use, and his best friends, none of whom had died in the storm the way he thought. He had 80 fucking million in gold headed his way. He had no business imagining Kie’s soft hand against Pope’s cheek when they kissed. Wishing he’d been there. Wishing it’d been him she kissed.

He had no business wishing for any fucking thing else, and he knew it. He just wished Kie didn’t know it, too.

She poked him in the side. “Oh my god, are you _brooding_? I thought John B pretty much had the brooding covered around here.” She clucked her tongue. “You’re right, JJ, you need to stop being all happy and chill and get some ambition already. Maybe some student loans.”

He snorted, throwing her a half-hearted smile. “Yeah, everybody knows those make everything better.”

“Get you some insurance,” she said, finishing their beer. “Five or six kinds, at least. Oh, and a town car.”

“Don’t forget a suburban-ass lawn to mow.”

“And a mortgage.” She snickered. “You gotta get your shit together, Maybank. There are a lot of problems you need to dig up for yourself.”

He nudged her knee with his, pretending he wasn’t smiling. “Shut up.”

She nudged back, doing a worse job than him of pretending she wasn’t smiling. “You shut up.”

They subsided into that easy afternoon quiet again and he thought about lighting another joint, but he already had a good glow going and he didn’t want to go inside to get his stash.

“Hey,” she said, her voice different somehow. “You don’t have to answer this, but…”

Oh, he’d been wondering when this was coming. “Am I gay or bi?” he finished for her, before she could wrap it in two paragraphs of politically correct bullshit. He liked how Kie had love for everybody and everything on earth, he really did. But the girl had a tendency to vocabulary things to death. Especially things like this, that really weren’t that complicated.

She dropped one foot to the porch, tucked her other beneath her on the chair. “You just said queer when JB asked. I figured you did it on purpose. You know you never have to explain yourself to me, but if you want a listening ear, I’ve got a couple.”

He sprawled back in his chair. He honestly hadn’t thought about it that much. Pope had been such an angsty mess up until him and Kie’s experiment that JJ had mostly been focused on helping him figure his own shit out. And JJ didn’t need to know everything the way Pope did. Unless it had to do with money, or boats, or red bikinis, he just wasn’t that fucking curious.

“I don’t know,” he said after a minute. “I always assumed I was bi, until lately. With all those girls I’d pick up at the Boneyard, it’s not like I wasn’t having fun. They’re easy on the eyes, and who doesn’t like sex? But compared to what it’s like when I’m with Pope, it’s…just nothing.” He glanced at Kie. “So then I thought, maybe I didn’t like those girls as much as I thought I did. And I guess I got a little more into it with the couple of guys I hooked up with before Pope.”

She was watching him, and it almost seemed like her eyes were more dilated than they had been. But she had her neutral “listening friend” face on.

“Okay, well, I’ll tell you the same thing I told Pope,” she said, very casually. “I’m a safe space if you want to experiment.”

His teeth came together with a click, and anger flared, never as far from the surface as he thought it was. “Thanks, but I don’t want your pity fuck.”

“JJ! That’s not what I was saying and you know it.” She gave him a look.

When he didn’t answer, she reached out to touch his arm and he shifted back, scowling toward his feet.

“With Pope,” she said, “I kissed him because I knew it was never going to work for him to experiment with strangers because he wouldn’t be comfortable enough. It’s just how he is. You’re a lot more casual about sex than he is but you’re also…” She paused, her eyes flicking up and to the side as she struggled for words. “With touch, sometimes…you’re…”

His elbows dug into his knees as his muscles slapped taut. “I’m what, Kie? Because I think we both know I’ve rocked a hell of a lot more bed frames than you, so what exactly do you think you’re teaching me here?”

Her lips pursed. “Don’t be a jerk, JJ. I know I’m not saying this right, okay? I don’t know what to call it or how to put it, really. It’s just that you don’t seem to care who you hook up with, but you won’t let anybody but the Pogues touch you like _touch_ you touch you. Hugs and stuff, or reach anywhere near your face, or steal your hat.”

The first time he’d ever gotten suspended was when a kid came up behind him and stole his hat at recess and JJ floored him before he’d even realized what he’d done.

He dropped his head, pissed that she was right and wishing it was already dark so she couldn’t be looking at him so much right now.

“It’s _fine_ , JJ. There’s nothing wrong with that.” She touched his knee, very briefly, not pushing him. “You’re different than Pope in so many things, but in a way, you’re the same, too. You never gave a fuck about those Boneyard girls and you give all the fucks in the world about Pope. Whether that’s just about your bond with him, or whether it means something for your sexual identity, who knows? But I…I’m the only girl Pogue.” She laughed, but it sounded a little bit forced. “Like Pope said to me, I’m your only real data point. Because if you’re going to experiment with anybody, it should be someone you trust, just like Pope, even if it’s for different reasons.”

She reached for his knee again, but stopped herself before she connected, and his skin tingled like it missed the touch it hadn’t gotten.

“You deserve that, JJ.”

He shot her a look, his bullshit detector pinging. “That was a hell of a long speech for a spur of the moment offer.”

There was no way she’d put this much thought into it just because she was worried about him. There was something else going on, but he wasn’t totally sure what. Maybe this was the red bow she was trying to slap on that pity kiss.

She sat back, her eyelashes fluttering as she adjusted her bikini straps, retied the strings behind her neck more firmly. “I mean, it’s not like this is the first time it’s come to mind. I wanted to talk to you, make sure you were doing okay with all this, but I don’t get you alone very much.”

“Uh-huh.” He eyed her. “The fuck do you care, Kie? Because I don’t really. Care if I’m bi or gay, I mean. Either it’ll be obvious one way or another at some point or it won’t, but it’s not like with Pope here, I care to be messing around with girls this summer anyway.”

She looked away quickly, shrugged. “Okay. That’s cool, too, JJ. I was just saying, I’m here for you. That’s all.”

“It’s not all.” His bullshit detector had gone from pinging to howling and she had goosebumps all down her arms where she’d just crossed them over her chest. He leaned closer, the afternoon sun seeming to crank several degrees warmer as he studied her face.

She was avoiding his eyes. “You want to go down to the liquor store, see if your cousin is working and will buy us that beer?” She hopped up. “I can drive.”

“Kie.” He got up, but she was already reaching for the screen door on the porch and he had to catch her wrist to get her to stop. “What’s up with you, lately?”

“If you ask me if I’m on the rag, so help me God, JJ, violence is not out of the question.” She pushed open the door with her free hand and tried to tug away from him.

He spun her by the wrist, backing her up against the wall and dropping an arm to each side of her head so she couldn’t blow him off.

“Nope. You’re gonna talk. You’ve been sad and mopey for weeks, and now you’re giving me this whole long thing about all the reasons I should be experimenting about kissing girls with you.”

He frowned down at her, wishing John B was here to pinch hit this conversation. He was always way better at this stuff. Or Pope. They always sent Pope in when she was really upset, because she never got hopping mad at him the way she would at JJ and John B. And Pope would listen and listen until she started to say all the stuff she wouldn’t tell the rest of them.

She squirmed, still not meeting his eyes. “Can we just go get beer already _, God_.”

He shifted his weight, blocking her more clearly from the door. “Pogues don’t have secrets from Pogues, and you’re being Pope levels of weird right now, Kie.”

“I just wanted to—help, okay?” she burst out. “Still be a part of things. Our group is all these super intense couples now and when you and Pope got together…” She was fucking _crying_ again, swiping at her watering eyes while JJ watched incredulously.

Kie never cried. She’d once gotten a twenty-gauge hook stuck in her ear when some asshole had cast right across their boat on a busy Saturday at the marina. It bled like a bitch when JJ’d pulled it out with needle-nose pliers but all she’d done was swear like crazy, hadn’t dropped a tear. Why was she suddenly all weepy today?

“I’m so happy for both of you, please don’t get me wrong. Like, I know that everyone is supposed to say that, but I don’t think I even understood the phrase fully until I saw how Pope just…unfurled with you. It’s the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him and I _loved_ seeing it, seeing both of you together. It made me happy in a different way than I even understood the word before and you—you—” She struggled for words.

“I know, I’m amazing,” he teased, trying to lighten her mood. “You don’t have to tell me.”

She looked at him, finally. “You are, JJ. And Pope can be very…focused on the things he cares about. You deserved to be loved like that.”

JJ took a step back, uncertain. How had they ended up talking about all this stuff?

“He would never, never cheat on you, and you deserve to be safe that way, JJ. You saw him when he tried to go on that Grindr date. I thought I was going to have to take him to the hospital.” She pressed a hand to her chest, her eyes glittering. “Happy is a stupid, tiny word for how glad I am that you’ll have somebody who can love you with the same insane loyalty you give us. All the Pogues. Even when we don’t always deserve it.”

He shoved at her shoulder, kind of wishing he’d just let her go on that beer run. “You don’t have to get all emotional, just because I got a boyfriend. He is hot, though, right?” He winked. “And hey, he did kind of cheat on me, though, with you.”

Her eyes widened. “Is that how you see it? Because he told me you told him to experiment and you guys are in an open—”

“Jesus, shut up already.” He rolled his eyes. “I was joking. You’re so serious about all this shit.”

“Because it’s important, JJ. No matter how much you try to joke it all away.” She nailed him with a look and he tried not to squirm. “I offered to be a safe space for Pope to experiment because I care about him and—”

“And because he’s hot. Like you haven’t seen those abs.”

She glared at him and he still didn’t get a laugh out of her. “Okay, it wasn’t much of a hardship, but that’s so not the point. I know you’re not short of girls, clearly you’ve had your share of experimenting, but something tells me it didn’t totally…you know. Because of your thing about being touched.”

She sighed, pushing past him to collapse onto the porch couch. She pulled at her bracelets, testing the knots.

“And okay, I think part of me wants to be going through this _with_ you guys, not suddenly be on the outside looking in. If I’m the only one not falling in love, at least I can be the girl who helped you figure out…” She stopped. “I’m horrible, aren’t I?”

He dropped onto the couch next to her. “Yeah, dude, but I think we knew that when you called the cops on the birthday party of the girl who was supposed to be your best friend.”

She groaned and snatched up the cushion off the chair next to her, whacking him with it. “JJ!” He swiped the cushion away, tossed it to the porch floor.

“So you really want to?”

She looked at him.

He tried to ignore his heart beating faster. “Not just for me, like a favor, that’d be gross, but like, with me.”

She tugged at the edges of her cutoffs, then curled her knees up to the side, facing closer to him. “Okay, _never_ repeat this, but I always thought you were a little cute.”

His heart jolted with pure, undiluted surprise.

“Cuter than John B?” he asked instantly. Her lashes flicked down. “YOU DID!” he crowed, laughing. “Cuter than Pope?”

She glared. “Now you’re just being an ass. It’s not a contest, JJ.”

“It’s always a contest. That’s why they invented numbers, so you could rate things.” He lounged back, grinning. Pope thought he was the hottest Pogue, and Kie thought he was the hottest Pogue, and with two out of three, he won once and for all. No disputing it. He couldn’t wait to lord it over John B, who he had definitely caught using Sarah’s hair products last week.

“Didn’t they invent numbers so people could count their wheat or goats or something?”

“No,” JJ said. “So on a scale of 1-10, am I like one point cuter than John B or like ten points cuter?”

“More important question. If you kiss me, is Pope going to be hurt?”

JJ stopped to consider that one. He never expected to have a chance in his natural born life to kiss Kiara Carrera, much the way mere mortals didn’t consider what they might do if they had a chance to eat diamonds in their breakfast cereal. So he hadn’t really thought it through.

Pope had told him once that humans were the only species who couldn’t tell fantasy from reality. What if this whole time, Kiara had just been a fantasy? A girl that every breathing person was into, so of course he thought he had a crush on her, too. Thinking back on it, he’d kissed plenty of people who had been head-turningly hot but the kissing had turned out nothing special, the sex okay.

All it had taken to cure John B’s crush was one little kiss, and he’d been the absolute worst of them when it came to being all stuttery and twisted up over Kie. One kiss and he was over it, in love with Sarah a few days later.

On the other hand, it hadn’t worked that way for Pope. After he’d kissed her last week, he’d looked as dizzy as if he’d taken a bat to the face. But Pope was pretty easy to impress in bed, JJ had decided. Hell, he’d been blowing all Pope’s circuits on a damn regular basis and he’d messed around with a grand total of two guys previous to this.

Besides, if kissing Kie had been that great for Pope, he’d have given JJ the easy let down after that and moved on. Not touched every bead in his bracelet and told him it was him first, before everybody. If he’d wanted Kie, he wouldn’t have stayed with JJ.

JJ had kissed plenty of people, chicks and guys, and he’d never had it reach all the way down into his blood and take hold of him the way it had with Pope. He was pretty sure that shit didn’t happen twice in one lifetime. So he could keep fighting it, hating himself down to the blood in his veins every time he caught himself looking at Kie. Or he could kiss her once and be free, never have to worry that someday his Maybank nature would rear its squirmy, untrustworthy head and make him do something that would hurt Pope.

“Technically, we’re in an open relationship so he can experiment. I’m pretty sure he’d allow me the same.” JJ shrugged. “That probably leaves it open for tourons, too, but I just haven’t felt like making the trip to bonetown recently.”

“I take it back,” Kie said. “I’m not going to kiss any guy who just made a bonetown reference.”

He grinned, the familiar thrill of teasing her zinging through his body. “Yes, you are. Because you’ve always thought I was cute.”

“I should never have told you that.” Her eyes flickered down to his lips. “Regret. I already have so much regret.”

He leaned a little closer because holy fuck, she was _letting_ him, and that thrill only got stronger the nearer he got, like how much faster whiskey hit you than beer. She was damn near all the way to pure grain alcohol, that’s how fast she was going to his head right now. “I can fix that,” he murmured softly.

She took a tiny little gulp of air, still looking at his mouth, then all at once she looked away. “But wait…”

He sat back. “What?”

She bit her lip. “You’re technically open, but if it’s _me_ … Pope’s going to worry if it’s me and not just some stranger, isn’t he? He likes you _so_ much, JJ, you have to be able to tell.”

 _Loves me,_ JJ thought, the words rising on their own with as often as he’d heard Pope say them.

He was so close to sorting this out, so close to the one kiss that would release the strange hold Kiara had always had on him. So close to living with a clear conscience for maybe the first time in his grubby life. But she was right. How he could do this, if it had a chance of hurting Pope? That wouldn’t save a thing about him maybe fucking up later if he just did it now instead, open relationship or not.

“Okay,” he said. “Then let me text Pope real quick and ask.”

Kiara blinked. “Wait, really?”

JJ was already typing.

**[Text messages]**

**5:43 p.m.**

JJ: hey if I kissed kie too would you be mad?

Pope: You’re evil.

JJ flinched, his stomach dropping. He looked up at Kiara. “Uh, yeah, so…” But before he could finish, his phone dinged again.

**[Text messages]**

**5:44 p.m.**

Pope: I really needed this boner at work, thanks.

Pope: You’re so not funny.

JJ: im serious

JJ: she offered. sort out the bi/gay thing

Pope: You’re going to experiment kiss Kie?!!!

Pope: DUDE

**5:48**

JJ: you freaking out?

**5:52**

JJ: bro where’d you go

**[Incoming call from: Pope Heyward]**

“I’ll be right back,” JJ said to Kiara, already lifting the phone to his ear.

“Yeah, of course. I’ll be inside, give you some privacy.” She backed toward the front door, but he didn’t get a chance to read her expression because Pope’s earnest voice was already coming through the phone.

“JJ, listen, you supported the hell out of me when I needed to sort out my own identity, and I trust you, I definitely want you to have the space to do what you need—”

“But you don’t want me to kiss Kie,” JJ finished for him before Pope got through his long list of disclaimers. He pushed out the screen door and moved out toward the water. “That’s fair. That’s why I texted first.”

“No, that’s not what I was going to say. I was just thinking…” Pope hesitated. “Be careful, JJ.”

He frowned. “That’s what I’m doing, that’s why I’m calling you.”

“Not with me, with Kie. She’s been weird lately, don’t you think? Like, sad. And I think she might…” Pope stopped again. “Well anyway, make sure she knows it’s just an experiment, okay?”

JJ looked at the phone. Put it back to his ear to say dryly, “Pope, I think she knows that we’re together.”

“But open, though.”

“But open. So…”

There was a pause that seemed weighted, but JJ wasn’t sure with what.

“Pope?”

“GOD, I wish I could see this right now,” Pope exhaled. “Fuck, I’m so hard.”

JJ started laughing. “Are you serious? That’s not what I thought you were going to say.” He chuckled into his fist, trying not to laugh too loudly in case Kie heard him and thought it was at her. The wind gusted in off the ocean, tickling his hair against his neck under the edges of John B’s cap.

“For real, JJ,” Pope said, “I support you experimenting, and I’m _so_ glad you’re doing this with Kie and not some touron, this time. Except all I can think about right now is how hot this is and it’s all your fault. All the sex with you broke me, and now all I can think about is sex.”

JJ choked, laughing harder. “Dude, you’re killing me right now.”

“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Pope said. “She’s gonna blow your mind.” Heyward’s voice boomed from the background. “I gotta go back to work. With this boner, apparently. You asshole. See you tonight, okay? I love you.” He hung up, and JJ turned back to the house, laughter still rumbling in his chest and tugging at the corners of his mouth.

The wind huffed again, chilly through his shirt. He could feel the change in barometric pressure, like the generations of islander in his blood could taste it.

If there was a storm rolling in, he needed to pull the HMS Pogue up out of the water, but he had more important things to do first. He started across the yard, his hands tingling.

But his phone dinged again before he got to the house and he stopped to check the text.

**[Text messages]**

**6:08 p.m.**

Pope: hey she doesn’t like it when it’s too rough so go easy ok?

Pope: Least at first.

Fuck, now _JJ_ had a boner. Karma was a bitch.

He pocketed his phone, and let himself into the house, where Kiara was waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I am Very Excited about the next two chapters.


	13. Roll the Dice

When JJ walked back into the Chateau, Kiara was curled on the couch with her feet tucked under her. She’d pulled her hair out of the topknot and was tugging anxiously at one curl.

She looked up at the sound of the door, her eyes wide. “Is Pope okay?”

JJ started to laugh again. “Pope’s an asshole.”

Her forehead creased.

“He gave me a whole raft of crap,” JJ elaborated. “But he said he was glad I was experimenting with you, and not some other girl, so we’re good.”

Her expression changed, a glitter of excitement coming through her worry, and she shifted on the couch. The heat in her eyes…Jesus, she’d never looked at him like _that_ before, not once in all the years they’d known each other. Then again, he’d never been allowed to look at her like that, either. Never been actually allowed to touch her.

He pulled off John B’s hat and flicked it onto the floor, crossing the room in two strides and dropping a hand to either side of her on the couch.

Her hair rippled over her shoulders and all the way down to her waist, framing the swell of her breasts in that bright, perfect bikini that nearly glowed against her soft brown skin. Her layers of necklaces rose and fell quickly with her breath as he dove to her mouth. At the last minute, he remembered _Go easy_ and he reined himself the fuck in. Slowing just before his lips touched hers.

But then she gulped a big breath against his mouth, her breasts rising and brushing his chest. He dropped a knee onto the couch next to her and his hand found her shoulder, the kiss pulling him deeper.

JJ’s heart started to thump hard and his grip tightened without him meaning to.

Kie rolled them over, landing astride his lap instead. Her hands were slim and soft on his jaw and it felt like they were pulling something up and through him. Fear darted into his head at the weightlessness of the sensation, but then he wasn’t afraid at all; he was warm. There was a low thrumming sound and he realized he was groaning, almost growling, but her mouth drank all the sound so all he felt was the vibration between them.

Then her hips rolled against him and he lit the fuck up, his fingers tangling in her hair and the kisses going into panting bites against her neck. He cupped her ass, grinding her against him as he went fiercely hard. She matched the jerk and rock of his movement like she’d been born to it. Just like when they danced, how they hit the same beat without ever thinking. She let out a small cry, coming back to his mouth, and then her fingers were fumbling at his fly and all he could think was _yes please god yes_ as his whole body bowed to get closer to her touch.

“Stop,” he said. “Fuck, we gotta stop.” He dropped his head to her heaving breastbone and held onto her hard, gritting his teeth as he tried to fight down the ache of his cock that wanted to drive up against her. Into her.

His arms shook. He wanted it _bad_.

She gasped and tried to jump up and he gripped her tighter.

“Don’t,” he said roughly. “Hold up.”

“God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t _think_.”

“Oh, I was thinking,” he said and let out a breathless, staggering laugh. “And that was _exactly_ what I was wanting, believe me.”

A low drum of sound filled the room that hadn’t been there before, and he realized at some point during that kiss, it had started to rain.

“But Pope…” she said. “I didn’t mean for that to—holy _shit_ , JJ.”

“I know,” he said, and made himself sit back a little, his hands falling to her small waist so he could catch her if she tried to bail. He had a whole new set of problems now, and all the blood in his brain had headed way too far south to make sense of them.

That kiss hadn’t cured a thing.

She was looking at him, eyes wide and shocked. Underneath that, he saw the exact same awareness that was thrumming through him. She was impossibly even more beautiful than she’d been this morning, like every curve of her face had been invented strictly to bring him to his knees.

If this was how he looked to her right now, too, they were in so much trouble.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, blinking. “You’re _atomic_ fucking hot, Kie. Goddamn.”

“I’m so sorry,” she exhaled, trying to pull away again. He caught her belt loop and gripped before she could. “That was supposed to be about you figuring stuff out and I…I got way carried away. It was selfish.”

JJ couldn’t stop looking at her. Never wanted to break that lock of their eyes that both knew…that. That they could be like _that_ together. It was like breathing dynamite.

“Pope said he didn’t know if he liked kissing you because he likes girls, or because he likes you,” JJ said. “I’ve kissed a lot of girls, Kie. It’s you.” He still couldn’t stop staring. “Fuck, Kie.”

“Yeah.” She gulped, wriggled off his lap, and this time he let her go. “Shit. We should maybe not have done that. But it doesn’t mean anything.”

“It _means_ I’m so hard I can’t even walk to the bathroom to jerk off,” he said. “Jesus.”

“It means we’re young and healthy and apparently you’re bi and we care about each other, and we got carried away,” she babbled, her voice just one shade too high.

He nodded. “And we’re going to keep our shit sorted because we almost lost one of the Pogues the night John B sailed into that storm, and I can’t do that again. Not even for this. You hearing me, Kie? We all need _all_ of us.”

The Pogues came first. He couldn’t live without the Pogues, and he absolutely could and would fucking not hurt Pope.

Everything else he wanted didn’t matter for shit. Even if it felt like every nerve in his body was sewn tight into the sight of her. Even if it felt like she had just rewired his whole mind with that kiss.

Kiara was pacing, her hair tangled into heaps of beautiful, and it streamed out behind her as she spun for another lap.

“We’re obviously going to tell Pope we kissed but JJ…” She whirled to face him, her eyes pleading. “I don’t want to tell him it was…that we… I think he’d… I don’t want to hurt Pope, do you understand? I’d give up _anything_ to keep from costing you each other.”

“Got it.” He nodded sharply.

She cared about exactly the same things he did, and it didn’t matter how _much_ it turned out there was between the two of them, too. Because he simply couldn’t un-love Pope.

“So we should…play video games?” she suggested, her eyes darting wildly around the room, bouncing a little on her bare toes. From the porch, her phone trilled a new text message.

“I uh, can’t really think right now,” he said. “But also walking is pretty much out.”

She nodded. “I get it, I’ll go.”

He jumped up, then realized he probably shouldn’t stop her. “Kie? Are we good?”

She hugged herself, ducking her head so her hair fell forward and brushed her elbows. His skin goosebumped with the memory of that same silky hair falling all around him.

“I—I’m gonna try, JJ. It’s hard to look at you right now, knowing… But I swear I won’t make things weird. Somehow.”

He closed his eyes, the rain falling ever heavier on the roof. “Maybe don’t say the word hard right now. We’ll go fishing tomorrow, okay?”

“Right. Fishing.”

Her phone bleated again and the front door slammed. His eyes popped open and he gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to follow her out onto the porch. Even the way she moved was pulling at a void in him now. Like a song that was stuck in his head he wanted desperately to listen to, except that didn’t make sense at all when it was about a whole _person_.

Through the window, he saw as she ducked to pick up her phone and then frowned as she read the screen. Shit, what if it was from Pope and something was wrong that Pope hadn’t wanted to say to him?

_Make sure she knows it’s just an experiment, okay?_

His boyfriend’s words played through his head and their meaning hit JJ with staggering force.

Pope had known Kie had feelings for him, and he’d been worried JJ would hurt her. Of course Pope had known when JJ hadn’t, because Pope knew fucking _everything_.

JJ had never minded being the dumbest Pogue quite so much as he did right this second. He yanked his phone out of his pocket and started to type.

**[Text messages]**

**[6:43 p.m.]**

JJ: fuck shes not ok pope how do I make this

But before he could finish or send the text, Kie came back inside, a whoosh of rain-scented air pushing its way inside along with her.

“My mom said she wants me to get home before the rain starts,” she said, checking next to the couch and then glancing across the room toward the kitchen.

“Uh, kinda too late for that.” He had to stop looking at her. He stuffed his phone and its unsent text in his pocket just for something to do with his hands.

“Yeah, I noticed. Have you seen my bag? I can’t find my keys.”

JJ wasn’t sure if he could find his own hands right now. “Uh, haven’t seen them.” He crossed the room and yanked up the bent shades. “Whoa, Kie, no wonder your mom thinks you suddenly don’t know how to drive in the rain. Have you seen it out there?”

“Rain is rain,” she said, coming out of the kitchen and sticking her head in the bathroom. “Really, where in the fuck else could I have put my bag?”

“Yeah, it’s just rain as long as you know how to parallel park an ark, Noah.”

She bent over to peer under the couch and he hastily averted his eyes from those perfectly fitted cutoffs.

“But yeah, you know, I’m sure it’s fine. Your mom wants you home, and you’ve driven in the rain like a billion times, so whatever.”

She threw him a pressed-lip look. “Trying to get rid of me? Subtle, JJ.”

“Not trying to get rid of you,” he protested. “Just saying.” He was already medaling in gold at not making this shit weird, clearly.

A different kind of roar came in under the pounding of the rain on the roof and he glanced outside to see headlights approaching. Except they were set too wide to belong to John B’s VW.

“Why’s Pope here?” Kiara frowned. “Wait, JJ, he was really okay with things when you called, right?”

He glared at her. “The fuck, Kie? No, I lied so I could do whatever I wanted. If I was gonna do that, why wouldn’t I just kiss you and not text him first?”

“I don’t know!” she cried out, her voice climbing. “Why’s he here all of a sudden? I thought he was at work all night.”

“I don’t know either, but it’s no big thing.”

Confidence. Looking casual, chill, and confident was the key to getting out of every kind of trouble, whether it was with the cops, or fooling his boyfriend into thinking he wasn’t jealous so Pope could do the experimenting he needed to do. Relaxed certainty was also the key to keeping Kie from freaking out and detonating like a land mine planted squarely in the center of the Pogues’ friendship.

So JJ smoothed his face into its best two-blunts-worth-of-chill and caught her hand when she started to pace again. “Kie. We didn’t do anything wrong. We’re in an open relationship, I told him what we were doing, it was a better kiss than expected, and who the fuck cares because we’re still friends, just like we were yesterday. My boyfriend can come over whenever, and it’s not an emergency. Pogues for life, right?”

“JJ, you’re hurting me.” She tugged at his grip and he jumped back, releasing her hand like he’d been burning her. “Not bad, it’s okay,” she rushed to say when she saw his face. “I think you just didn’t realize how hard you were holding on. But you’re right, you’re right. Everything’s fine. Pogues for life.” She reached back for him, whishing the quick Pogue handshake with more intensity than usual. They’d just completed the last snap when Pope burst through the door, all his clothes dripping with rain.

#

Kiara bit her lip as Pope stomped his wet shoes on the bare floor where a mat should be. She wanted to swallow her tongue, and actually her whole body, and just disappear, rather than look at him right after she’d kissed the holy hell out of his boyfriend. She wasn’t certain, actually, that she could ever look at him again. But as soon as he lifted his head, his expression concerned and a little irritated, her lungs released. Same old Pope.

Same Pope who’d once tried to show her the aging principles of bloating patterns on a roadkill squirrel, and whose kiss had felt as natural and worn-smooth as a ring she’d been wearing for forty years. She knew these boys. And her feelings for them were a whole lot stronger and more mixed up than she’d ever expected, but these boys were still hers. She’d do whatever she had to in order to keep it that way.

“What the hell, you guys?” Pope sputtered, rain dripping off his chin. “Why is the HMS Pogue still in the water? The waves are beating it half to death against the dock. We need to—” He stopped. “Wait, were you still doing the kiss thing? Shit, I’m sorry, that was like an hour ago. I can get the boat myself, I just need to borrow a trailer hitch for the truck.”

“We’re done doing the kiss thing,” JJ said, and went across the room to Pope, pulling him into a hug.

“Whoa, what, hey.” Pope tried to look down at JJ as the other man hooked his chin over Pope’s shoulder. “You okay? JJ, you realize I’m like…soaking wet right now.”

JJ’s back flexed as he held on even more fiercely, but a second later, he pulled back, shaking his hair out of his eyes with a quick flick. “That’s what she said.”

Kiara threw her hands up. “Seriously, JJ?”

But Pope looked a little less worried after the joke, and JJ just said, “Want some help with the boat?”

“Pope, did you see my bag anywhere on your way in?” Kiara said. “I’ve got to get home and I’ve looked everywhere for my keys.”

“Dude, Kie, you can’t drive in this, are you nuts?”

“Pope, you were literally _just driving_ in this. What, your magical penis helps you see better in the rain than my weak woman eyes?” She glared at him.

“My magical…whatever…didn’t keep me from almost taking out the Peterson’s mailbox when I dropped a tire off the road.” He swiped a hand over his soaked hair, flicking the water to the mat beneath him. “It’s raining too hard to see the lines on the road already, and it’s only supposed to get worse.”

“Then what are you doing here?” JJ asked. “Thought you had work.”

Pope gave him an odd look. “The marina closed for the storm.”

“I heard it wasn’t supposed to make landfall. And it’s early season, yet.”

“Haven’t you seen the news all day? It shifted and it’s moving fast. Gonna be a tropical storm, maybe even a Category 1.”

“Shit, John B is still driving Uber, bet he hasn’t seen the news.” JJ pulled his phone out of his pocket and paced away.

Kiara looked to Pope. “Why aren’t you home, if there’s a storm blowing in?”

It was so weird that he wasn’t looking at her weird. She’d _seen_ JJ text him. If he’d shown up here because he was jealous, she’d better clear the air now while JJ was distracted on the phone to John B.

“I grabbed the last piece of plywood the store had left to sell,” Pope said. “If we don’t board up the window that broke in the last storm, the cardboard is gonna soak through and fill up the whole house.”

“That’s it? Really.”

He glanced across the room. “Okay, and I kind of wanted to check on JJ. Is he good?”

She grimaced. “Maybe? You should ask him yourself. Pope—”

“Hey, and are _you_ okay?” he dropped his voice, taking a step forward to ask, but then JJ was turning back to them.

“John B was out in the Figure 8. He’s gonna hole up at Sarah’s new apartment until it blows through. He thinks the cardboard on that bedroom window will hold because we put a shit load of duct tape on it, but I think if we still have any boards out back in the shed, we should probably board it up.”

“I’m on it,” Pope said and stripped out of his soaked shirt. “I brought plywood.”

Kiara averted her eyes as he swiped his shirt down his chest, blotting up water droplets on his bare skin. That looked way too intimate today, somehow, like something she wasn’t allowed to see.

“Okay, Kie,” Pope said, “Were you in the hammock today? Or did you take the boat out? Sometimes you leave your bag out there.”

“Oh shit, the Pogue. I bet my bag’s in the boat.” She winced. “It’s a good thing I didn’t leave my phone in there. It’d probably be toast by now.”

“We’ll get it when we pull the boat out of the water,” JJ said, shucking his shirt and tossing it toward the couch, then reaching for the button on his shorts.

“Uh, is there a reason you two need to be naked to board up a window?” She shielded her eyes with a hand.

“Clothes are just going to get soaked anyway,” JJ said, “and I haven’t done laundry this week. Don’t have more clean stuff if these get wet. You should hang tight inside anyway. No reason for you to get wet, too.”

“That’s what she—” Pope started, then realized who he was talking to and shot a terrified look at Kie. “Sorry.”

She sighed and reached for her cutoffs. “I’ll get my Xterra. It’s got the hitch still on and I’ll get the trailer hooked up while you guys start on the window. I’m already in my swimsuit anyway.”

Her phone beeped and she glared toward it, then hopped on one foot to get out of her cutoffs, swiping up the phone with her free hand as she tossed the shorts toward the couch.

“Okay, so _now_ my mom doesn’t want me to drive anywhere. Says to sit out the first wave of rain and get my ass home as soon as it lets up. Make up your mind, Mom.” She sighed, dropping her phone back on the table. As soon as her head came up, both the boys looked away.

What a day to get stuck waiting out a storm. As the third wheel of a new, very in-love couple. But she only had to last an hour or two until the rain eased enough for her to make the dash home. Surely she could do that.

JJ went back to unbuttoning his shorts and her pulse jolted. She shook her head, holding up a hand. “No, nope. I’m not helping if you guys are getting naked together out there. TMI, even for Pogues.”

“I only have one set of clean, dry clothes,” JJ protested. “You get me naked now or later, Kie. Take your pick.”

Pope shrugged, the movement making his shoulders flex and pull. “I’m already soaked and I’ve got no spares, so I might as well keep my shorts on until we’re done.”

She groaned. “Boxers?”

“Okay, boxers,” JJ agreed, and pulled off his shorts.

She glanced away and opened the front door, shivering at the blast of wind that let in. “Let’s get this over with.” On the bright side, at least she’d be getting the cold shower she so desperately needed.

#

“Stop stealing the blanket!” Kiara squeaked, jerking the fabric back her way.

“I’m not! Though I should get at least _some_ of it.” Pope’s teeth chattered, stuttering his argument. “You’re smaller.”

After dealing with the boat and the window, they’d toweled off the best they could, but her bikini and hair were still soaked. She’d pulled on the only hoodie she could find, but it smelled like JJ. The goosebumps and guilt that rippled over her whole body had her ripping it back off a second later. So they’d dug up a blanket and crouched on the couch, but Pope was shivering almost as much as she was, because he’d been wet for longer.

His smooth bare shoulder kept brushing hers when their shivers overlapped. He’d pulled a pair of JJ’s shorts out of the wash pile, but none of the shirts had passed the sniff test. JJ had his dry clothes that he’d taken off earlier, but had ditched his wet boxers and pulled his shorts back on commando style. Kiara had tried very hard not to think about that when she saw both their sets of underwear hanging up to dry on the shower rod.

She was trying very, _very_ hard not to think about it right now, on the couch with Pope on one side and JJ down at the end, not even fighting them for the end of the blanket, even though his bare arms had a bit of a blue tinge to them. Normally, JJ would be joking they should all cuddle for warmth, and then leaping into it four seconds later, but today he didn’t say a word.

He was the best boat driver of all of them, and it had still taken him three runs to get the boat up onto the trailer, because waves kept washing it up and off the rails before she could catch the bow with the hook and rope. She’d been half-frozen by the time they’d parked the boat and trailer and she’d dashed back to the house, her skin stinging from the lash of the huge raindrops.

Unfortunately, the cold was doing nothing to stifle the memory of Pope’s back muscles standing out hard as he held the plywood up, his thighs thick and widespread under the cling of his wet shorts as he braced it in place over the window. The chill was also not erasing the way JJ’s arms had rippled as he swung the hammer, sinking each nail with two deep thumps. The window was safe now, but Kiara was feeling anything but.

The rain blasted harder, shocking against the side of the house. JJ turned on the TV and dropped the remote, prowling through the rooms and checking the latches on windows. A low curse came from the bedroom and he stalked back out. “Bad news. The rain blasted through that cardboard before we got the board up and the bed is soaked. Gonna take forever for the mattress to dry.”

“John B already said he isn’t coming home tonight,” Pope said. “We’ll just sleep on the pull out, it’s fine.”

Kie glanced at the window, but the rain was pouring down it so hard she couldn’t see enough to tell if it had gotten better or worse. There was only one bed left in this house and she really, really needed to not be in it tonight.

JJ dropped back onto the couch, his fingers combing back through his wet hair. His lips were tight, the way they got after he’d just been punched. He wouldn’t look at her at all and Pope was giving her wide-eyed, _SOS?_ looks every three seconds, and she couldn’t answer him because he knew she wasn’t fine, and she couldn’t figure out why he _was_ fine, and they were all thinking so loudly she could barely hear the thundering of the rain on the roof.

Because if Pope was okay, it was because he trusted JJ. And he should, because JJ had stopped her, even though he’d been frantically hard beneath her and his eyes even more desperate. The boys were both fine, because the kiss with Pope that felt like gravity grounding her and the kiss with JJ that felt like fire consuming her…they hadn’t meant a thing to either of the guys. And she was a terrible fucking person for wishing they had felt a tenth of what she had, because if they had, they’d be breaking up right now.

And if there was anything worse than sitting in crushing silence, freezing and half-naked under a blanket with two guys you were in love with, it was watching them break each other’s hearts over you.

“I can’t watch TV right now,” JJ said, which was her first clue that it was still on. “Anybody want to play a game?”

Kiara thought of kitchen chairs, widely spaced around a table. “God yes,” she said, and leapt up off the couch, stealing the blanket and wrapping it around her with a half-apologetic, half-combative glance at Pope. He sighed and shivered his way over to the discarded JJ hoodie, where she’d left it on a chair. He pulled it on, the hood falling soft and thick around his neck and the heathered grey making his skin look an even richer brown. Kie yanked the blanket more tightly around her, and that just made it feel even more thin and inadequate.

Pope went digging in the top shelves of the closets and came up with a game of Sorry that was missing half its parts, a deck of cards, and a water-damaged Monopoly set. Kiara wasn’t sure cards were complicated enough to distract her, she wasn’t about to play a game centered around apologies, and so she leapt at the challenge of trying to teach the ever-rebellious JJ the rules of Monopoly.

“You seriously have never played Monopoly? Like, in your whole life?” Pope cleared dishes and beer bottles off the table, making space.

“Yeah, dude, my dad and me every Saturday night. Board games and meatloaf, for sure.” JJ rolled his eyes.

“It was invented by capitalist swine,” Kiara said. “But everybody starts out equal, so it’s pretty un-American.” She got a snicker out of Pope for that, but JJ was too distracted, still roaming around, checking the windows and all the most likely places for the roof to leak.

An hour later, he was definitely getting the last laugh, though.

“ _How_ ,” Kiara said, “are you this freaking good on your first time?”

JJ shot her a hooded look. “That’s what she said.”

“I ban that joke for tonight,” Pope said.

“And maybe forever,” Kiara said. “But seriously.”

“But seriously, babies could understand this game,” JJ said. “This is the Figure 8.” He swept his hand across the home stretch before the Go square, which he had bought and developed so completely that the only thing left to build was the koi pond and his marble statue of himself. “This is the Cut.” He flicked a finger toward the first stretch of road after Go, where Kie was scraping together a handful of mismatched low-rent properties, thanks to a few unlucky rolls of the dice early in the game. After that, everything she’d landed on had been bought up and it had charged her money to take up space there, not given her the opportunity to make any.

JJ’s fingers skipped across the railroads and she tried not to follow the flash of his thick rings.

“This is the shit everybody needs. The ferry, the marina. It ain’t luxury, but it’s steady money. The bigger you build, the more you can charge. You get in a bad spot, then you’re paying the bank pennies on your dollar to get fucked even harder. This is Kildare Island in cardboard, baby, nothing new to me.” He sat back and tipped his beer into his mouth. “Plus, you all started with as much cash to burn as me. It’s your own fault if I’m owning your asses.”

Pope snickered. He owned the railroads, all the utilities, and a solid run of yellows with two houses each, and he seemed to enjoy watching JJ win, even when it was at his expense. “You oughta teach business school, bro.”

“Can’t stop my punching impulse when I see those peach polo shirts,” JJ said. “Guess the professor life just isn’t for me.”

Kiara wasn’t sure business school taught the swift flourish of JJ’s hands that slipped an extra hundred into his own lap every time he made change for them out of the bank, or the way he’d volunteered to be the banker, making it sound like he was doing them a favor. Then again, maybe that kind of skimming was all business school taught. Either way, she hadn’t decided if she hated the smug look on his face more than she liked the smile that came with it. Until she did, she wasn’t going to out his cheating to Pope, who was probably way too principled to believe anybody would scam a board game.

Kiara’s phone chimed. “John B, I am so not bringing you more condoms,” she grumbled, and pretended not to notice that Pope grinned at her small joke.

**[Text messages]**

**8:30 p.m.**

Mom: I’m starting to think it’s not going to blow through anytime soon. Are you somewhere safe you can wait out the storm?

Kiara: I’m good. I’m at the Chateau.

_[Three bouncing dots appear]_

_[Three bouncing dots disappear]_

_[Three bouncing dots appear]_

Mom: Be safe, okay? Come home as soon as you can.

Kiara: Nope, gonna have an orgy with all the Pogues, probably.

Kiara: *pic of Monopoly board*

Mom: Haha. So can you spend the night there if it doesn’t let up by morning? Is the roof holding out? Will you be okay there?

Kiara: If anyone lectures me more than you, it’s Pope. Trust me, I’m fine.

“I saw that,” Pope said, “and it’s factually inaccurate.”

“It is not,” Kiara said. “You’re running about three lectures a day and my mom barely squeezes in one.”

He gave her a dark look.

“But you’re smarter than her,” Kiara offered. “So there’s that. And you lecture me about way more actual stuff that matters.”

“The risk of catching flesh-eating bacteria from the beach bathroom floors does not qualify as ‘actual stuff’,” JJ said. “And it’s your turn, Kie, and most of the numbers you could roll will result in you owing me money, so get on it.”

Kiara turned her phone face down and glanced around for the dice.

“Why is your mom being so weird about this?” Pope asked. “You stay over here all the time.

“I stay at ‘Sarah’s’ all the time.” Kiara air-quoted. “Before that, I stayed with ‘Chelsea from school’.”

“You _lied_?”

“Yeah, and y’all owe me emotional damages from the two dinners a month I had to bring Chelsea home for to cover all the time I spent with your sorry asses.”

“Up top,” JJ said, and her eyes flashed over in surprise, but he still managed to not look at her, even as he slapped her a high five and then crossed himself, which made her smile as he said with almost-reverence, “Here’s to Chelsea from school. God bless her gullible ass.”

Her palm was still tingling from his as her smile started to fade.

All night. She was stuck here all night long with only one bed, and Pope was wearing JJ’s softest hoodie, and neither of them were wearing underwear. The air inside was still chilled from the rain, but Kiara was starting to break a sweat as she reached for the dice.


	14. Inevitable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: You want the good news or the bad news, friends? The good news is OUTER BANKS JUST RENEWED FOR SEASON 2!!!!!! AGGHHHH even in Covid-hell we can still have nice things! Someday. When we can film again. That means I HAD TO CELEBRATE by releasing this, one of the most important chapters of the fic, early.
> 
> The bad news is, I’m out of banked chapters and as my next book gets closer to release, I’m gonna be more tied up with promo and have less fic writing time. So I may have to slow down my updates depending on how much time I get away from my original fic stuff to work on this. BUT I will not abandon you and updates will come. Probably not even that much slower, knowing me. I just don’t like to promise if I can’t for sure deliver.
> 
> BUT! There is more good news! This chapter is egregiously long. Like, as long as 4 normal chapters or at least 2 Trogdor chapters. So enjoy, friends, and celebrate with me, because Outer Banks S2 is coming!!!!
> 
> Song for this chapter is Taylor Swift’s Invisible String. Look up the lyrics, friends, bc they’re so perfect for this fic that when I found the line that mentioned “gold” my eyes about popped outta my head.
> 
> Also, whatever the steaminess rating is for this fic, crank it up another couple notches, because it’s about to get hot up in here!

Kiara didn’t say a word when JJ bankrupted her in Monopoly. Just took one look at the waiting couch, and suggested they stay in the kitchen and play again. Halfway through the next game, she lost her temper at all his triumphant shit-talking and outed him for cheating, expecting some support from Pope in her righteous indignation. But Pope just shrugged and said without a hint of surprise that half the fun of a game was trying to beat JJ even when he was cheating.

She flounced out of the room in outrage, and regretted it immediately when they all piled onto the couch with her and Pope put on a movie.

She barely lasted through the opening credits before she swiped one of JJ’s joints and went out to the porch to smoke it. It was even louder out there, the air cold and damp and the porch steps lost to water, and when she lit the joint, she thought she recognized the scent of distinctive, purple-threaded buds. Oh no. She remembered this stuff. Sure enough, two puffs in, all her skin started to glitter with sensitivity and she put the joint out before it could get any worse. She wasn’t even high enough yet to make a dent in her nerves.

She went back inside and Pope was sitting straight up on the couch, back as rigid as if he were in a church pew. She shoved him over so she wouldn’t be stuck between the boys again. “Act like you like your boyfriend, for God’s sake.”

She ignored his wounded look. JJ held his hand out for the half-smoked joint, then slotted it back into his pack of cigarettes. He looked at her, really _at_ her for the first time in hours, and she should have thought _finally_ but his lashes were low and speculative, and just like that she knew that he knew why she needed the joint.

In one glint of his blue eyes, that awareness was right fucking there all over again. Everything they had felt together humming between them, except Pope was sitting in that space now, hugging the nautical-print pillow into his lap like he was going to squeeze it half to death.

Did JJ give her those purple threaded cush buds on purpose? He knew what it did to her, how tactile she became. Last time she had smoked this strain, she kept begging John B to braid her hair and poutily cuddling with Sarah every time he tried to reach for his girlfriend himself.

No, he couldn’t have. JJ was on her side. She wanted, illogically, to murder his too-pretty ass right now, but they were on exactly the same side of this. The side that wanted Pope to be okay.

Pope, whose knee was jiggling so hard the old metal bars inside the pull out couch were starting to squeak in protest.

“Pope!” she finally burst out and he froze. “Why don’t you rub JJ’s shoulders?” she suggested, trying to soften her voice.

He gave her wide eyes like she just suggested he strangle an entire basket of puppies.

“What?” She threw her hands up. “Sometimes you get cabin fever, and that’s what helps JJ when he’s restless.”

“I’m fine.” Pope tugged the pillow tighter, and she was trying not to think of what he’d been trying to hide the last time he’d been hugging that pillow. Or of his soft kisses and the way they sparkled her whole body awake. How comforted she felt when she was next to him.

Kiara pointed her eyes back at the movie, trying to remember the last time she had sex. It was so long ago she could barely remember, and it didn’t seem like mere sex could be nearly enough to have been a cure for the enormous kind of tension building in her now.

Pope shifted and a fold of his sweatshirt brushed her arm. She twitched and threw a desperate glance at the window, but it was still pouring outside. She took a deep breath, but that came in scented like JJ and soft cotton and Pope’s hair balm and the unscented chapstick he always carried because he chewed on his lips when he was nervous, which was always. His lips had been soft, though, when they—

She leapt up. “Yeah, I’m gonna drive home. I’ll just go slow, how bad can it be? And then you guys can jump each other, like you’re clearly dying to do.”

“Whew, so it’s not just me!” Pope exhaled, his arms slumping on the pillow. “Guys, I think I’m finally experiencing teen hormones. I want to jump _everything_.” He paused, considered. “I might be pervert.”

JJ’s head jerked his way.

“It’s not perverted to like sex,” Kiara said automatically, her pulse rocketing so high in her throat she could barely even breathe for looking at them. Why had he said that out loud, why had he said _anything_ to call more attention to the tension in the room?

“It’s not just sex I like,” Pope said. “I like you. Both of you.”

Kiara’s eyes popped wide and she swapped a glance with JJ, who looked…less thunderstruck than she’d expected. She ripped her gaze away from him before she could sort out what that new look was in his eyes.

“Did you just…” she stuttered, no idea where she was going with that. Did Pope mean…

Pope dropped his head, squirming and his hands fisting in the pillowcase still firmly over his lap. “I’m sorry, I should not have said that out loud. I’m a pervert. A teen hormone pervert, please ignore me. I should not be on a couch watching movies with people I’ve experiment-kissed and—”

“You wanna try it?” JJ said abruptly.

“JJ!” Kiara yelped. “Jesus.”

“Right, like we’re all not fucking _detonating_ right now and doing a shit job of pretending we’re not,” JJ said. “If you’re not into it, that’s totally cool, and forget I said anything. But I’m way, _way_ fucking into it. I like you both, I want you both, and if that’s wrong, fuck me for saying it, but it doesn’t feel wrong.”

She couldn’t blink, couldn’t move. She looked at Pope, and his eyes were pleading, his lips wet like he’d been biting them and she wanted to— She swallowed the thought away. She couldn’t. She wanted this with a heat that went straight to her head and anything that felt this intense, this insane, had to be a bad idea.

“Just for tonight, we could try it?” Pope whispered. “Nobody has to know. Not even John B. He’ll just make it weird, anyway.”

He was serious. It had been Pope’s idea and he was serious and JJ had said straight out—hell, he hadn’t just said he wanted her. He’d said he _liked_ her. He meant that just because they were friends, right?

Her eyes met JJ’s like they’d planned it, and oh damn, there it was. Her legs went a little weak and sensation trilled up her inner thighs. She clenched her teeth together just to feel like she had something solid anywhere in her life, and reached for the voice she used when she needed to sound more confident than she was. The one she kept for when the guys dared her to do something, and she didn’t want them to know she was afraid.

“If we do this…” she said, testing the waters. They could still laugh it off, or take it back. “We stay friends no matter what. Come awkwardness, or even if both of you end up having tiny pricks.”

Pope chuckled, and the corner of JJ’s mouth kicked up. He shifted a little closer toward where she was standing, his leg knocking the remote to the floor. She jumped, and he picked it up and flicked off the movie none of them had been paying attention to. With the sound gone, the rain whooshed steadily, like it was hiding them from the rest of the world.

“Uh, I’ve been meaning to tell you, JJ,” Pope said nervously. “When Kie and I kissed. Not the first time, the first time you were there, but like when we were experimenting—”

“It was good,” JJ said.

“Yes, I know I told you it was good, but what I wanted to tell you—”

“Is that it was better than good, it was hot as fucking hell?” JJ was talking to Pope but he was looking at her and she couldn’t _breathe_ , she couldn’t—

“Well, I mean in a way but mostly like, sweet.” Pope reached over and gripped JJ’s wrist until he looked at him. “I don’t want you to think—”

Pope stopped himself this time, responding to something in the way JJ was looking at him.

“I get it,” JJ said. He cupped Pope’s neck. The movement was rough, and masculine, but still, something about it was also the sweetest thing she’d ever seen. She was prickling all over, watching them, and she couldn’t _stop_.

“Pope,” she burst out, because she couldn’t help herself. “Are you okay with this, for real? With both of us?”

He nodded. “I want to. Bad. But we have to swear we won’t let it get awkward. I don’t want to lose you. And JJ can’t—” He hesitated. “JJ can’t lose you.”

JJ scoffed, his eyes straying away. “I’m not that fragile, asshole.” He leaned down and kissed Pope, then held his eyes when he pulled back. “Yes?” JJ said, just between them. Kie felt bad even watching but her heart was hung on this moment so hard she couldn’t help herself.

Pope nodded.

JJ turned to her and his gaze hit her with such _heat_ her eyelashes fluttered with the impact.

But she didn’t know how to start. It was too much, the idea of just sliding onto the couch between them, so much of her skin already bare and throbbing with how much she wanted before she’d ever been touched. Didn’t know how to touch either of them, with the other watching.

“Kie.” Pope’s voice was soft, maybe even a little small, but when she looked at him, he was steady. He held out a hand to her.

She could do that. She’d known him since before his voice started to crack and change. She reached for him and their fingers slipped together, warm and falling into a grip without her having to think about it. He tugged, just a little, and her feet were moving for her.

His eyes were different than she’d ever seen them. Hooded, soulful. A little hazed, like he was already lost in how good this was going to feel. He tossed the pillow off his lap to the floor.

He tipped his chin up so his gaze could stay with her as she inched closer until she was standing right over him. Fire crackled all the way up the surface of her bare legs, the hem of her cutoffs too high to hide her goosebumps. She wanted the blanket back, a buffer against how acute this was. And at the same time, when he looked at her, she felt like it was already okay. She dropped a knee to the couch next to Pope, their eyes drinking each other.

“Jesus Christ,” JJ whispered, low.

Pope’s other hand slid under her hair, fingertips warm against her neck. She melted closer, the soft fabric of his hoodie folding around her along with his arms. His nose brushed hers, and he didn’t seem to mind the sharp, short breaths she was gulping. “Kie?”

She nodded, their lips brushing with the movement because she was already so close, and then he kissed her. More urgently than their last time, his hand diving deeper up into her hair as his other arm clenched around her waist. She was cuddled close into his lap before she’d even thought about it happening, her bottom warm against his legs, her knees tightening against his hips.

She pulled back and he was panting a little, his eyes bright, and it made her smile. She kissed his nose and he laughed, a breathless sound that went with the squeeze of his arms around her. Then she sat back, her thighs relaxing as she let Pope take her weight, and looked to JJ.

Her lips tilted up toward a smile, a dare like those that had always passed so easily between them, and his eyes zinged with hers. JJ brushed the hair back from her face with the back of his fingers, his thumb tracing her hairline so she felt the skim of cool white gold from John B’s grandpa’s ring.

He didn’t kiss her.

He didn’t need to, because everything that would have been in it was already passing between them. When his hand stole beneath her hair, her breath came in as sharp as if he’d unzipped something.

Pope’s palm laid against the curve of her waist, steady and large and she could feel his eyes on her as JJ hooked a finger behind her neck and under the flimsy knot of her bikini, and gave it a tug. Looked into and into and _into_ her until she was panting, nodding. Her back arching a little helplessly like he was already touching her.

Pope’s hand clenched against her side.

JJ pulled the string, never looking away from her. She could feel every strand of hair pouring down her naked back, over her shoulders, tangling with the edges of her bikini as they loosened. The bow gave way and his quick fingers slipped into what was left of the knot, sliding it loose so the ties tickled over her skin as they fell from her neck, the triangles of her bikini dropping with them.

Her sucked in breath rocked her against the growing ridge behind Pope’s fly, and that felt good so she closed her eyes. Did it again while his shaking hands cupped her hips, his thumbs skimming over her skin.

“Can I touch?” JJ said.

When her lids came open, JJ’s gaze hadn’t dipped. His eyes locked with hers, somehow the unstraying nature of it only emphasizing how bare she was before them, her bikini tied only around her ribs and the top loose and tickling her belly where it had fallen. She kept watching JJ and deliberately rolled her hips, grinding on Pope as he made a small, choked sound. JJ’s adam’s apple jumped.

“Yes,” she whispered, and wet her lips. JJ moved and her nipples pebbled, as if they could feel him already. But the backs of his hands just lifted her hair and brushed it back over her shoulders, the drag of the strands making her skin excruciatingly more sensitive. Then he leaned in, his shoulder brushing Pope’s as he kissed her.

Slow, like they hadn’t had the patience to do earlier, and with a deep, aching heat that seared the inside of her chest. God, she should have known JJ would be intense like that. He had so much heart to him, and he kept it locked down so hard that when he finally let go, it was overwhelming. She swayed, her knees clenching tight over Pope’s hips and she reached out blindly to steady herself. She ended up with a fistful of JJ’s shirt and Pope let go of her waist, catching her other hand and bringing it to his shoulder. “I got you,” Pope murmured. “I know.”

Her heart fluttered, because he must. He must know how JJ took you like a fucking storm and you were just… _floundering_.

JJ pulled back, then nipped at her lower lip, his eyes hot. His thumbs skimmed the lower curves of her breasts and she jumped a little, then pressed closer. His hands climbed, fingers stroking the lightest touch possible just at the edge of her nipples. Her lashes fluttered and her teeth clenched. “JJ, _dammit_.”

He chuckled, low and more breathless than she’d expected. “Soft or hard?”

“What?” She didn’t understand questions right now.

He reached behind her and the band of her bikini loosened, then fell in a heap of red onto Pope’s chest. Pope groaned like she’d hurt him, his hand coming up to fist the tiny triangles of fabric.

“Soft,” JJ repeated, ghosting his palm over one of her breasts. Just enough that she could feel the chill of her skin against the heat of his, one of his callouses catching and scraping a little against her nipple so her head went light. “Or hard?”

He caught her nipple and tweaked it, the bolt of sensation coming through so sharp she gasped. He let go, his eyes flaring almost electric blue as he flicked his hair back out of his face.

“JJ…” Pope said uneasily.

“Hard.” She grabbed JJ, her nails scoring the back of his neck as she kissed him so ferociously their teeth clashed. Then his hand covered her breast and his tongue plunged into her mouth and that sharp pinch of pleasure-pain bolted through her again and she moved against Pope, grinding down for relief they all needed.

“Uh God,” Pope said. “So hot.” Then his elbow bumped her and she fell out of the kiss, confused, but then starting to laugh when she realized he was clawing his sweatshirt off over his head.

“Oh fuck yes,” JJ said, and dove to bite Pope’s now-exposed shoulder, pressing rough kisses over his skin. Pope’s muscle bunched and he trembled, his hand cupping the back of JJ’s head and pulling him up.

They surged into a kiss, and heat bolted through Kie. She really wanted to touch them while they were kissing, and wasn’t sure if that was allowed. JJ’s hand slid down Pope’s chest and under Kiara’s legs, cupping Pope’s cock. When he flexed his hand, his knuckles raked against Kiara’s center and she let out a little broken sound, surprised. She shifted back a little so he’d have room, but he chased her, working them both shamelessly as he kissed Pope into a frenzy, the other man’s hands gripping helplessly in JJ’s shirt and the side of Kiara’s cutoffs.

Jesus, that felt good. She started to rock into JJ’s touch, riding Pope and letting JJ stroke him all at once. The sleeveless side of JJ’s Coors shirt was falling away, revealing smooth muscle and she couldn’t help but slide a hand inside, across his flexing abs and toward the waistband of his shorts. Her other hand found Pope’s bare chest, hard flat pecs and his skin quaked and trembled under her touch until she hesitated. “You okay?”

JJ pulled away enough to flash her a grin as Pope nodded frantically. “He’s always like this. All shaky and wound up.” JJ tweaked a nipple and Pope started to breathe even harder. “Bet we could get him off just from watching us kiss.” His eyes gleamed as he sat up and she burst out laughing. “What?”

She shook her head. “You’re exactly the same kind of mischievous bastard as you are out of bed, that’s what.”

JJ flexed his hand underneath her and her inner muscles clenched. He winked. “You can’t tell me it wouldn’t be fun.”

Kiara chanced a glance, but Pope was watching them so avidly she shrugged, then nodded. JJ’s free hand brushed across the waistband of her shorts, lighting the skin up all along the suddenly too-tight barrier. But instead of dipping, his touch started to climb. She stopped breathing so she wouldn’t pant and he leaned in by increments, his lashes flaring.

She held his gaze even as his hand reached the lower curve of her breast, because she was never one to give way in a dare. He gave in first, lifting the softest of kisses from her lips as his thumb feathered over her nipple, teasing it into a peak again.

“Oh god,” Pope said. “Oh god oh god.” His hips jerked underneath her and JJ’s hand tightened over his length. “You guys are _assholes_.”

JJ started to laugh into their kiss, but stole one more even after she started to grin, too. “But sexy, right?”

“My god, but still assholes,” Pope said. “Gimme that.”

He clawed at JJ’s shirt, and JJ’s hand pulled away, leaving cold air brushing over the center seam of her shorts for a second. But then JJ was shirtless, all sleek muscle and sharp shark’s tooth necklace, leaning in to nip at her shoulder. His hand reached behind her to rub its way up Pope’s knee, across her ass, then up her spine. Kiara arched back into his touch. The things he was doing to her neck and that sensitive curve of her shoulder were making her squirm and Pope was starting to curse in that low, reverent voice again.

“Wanna see what else is fun about Pope?” JJ said against her slick neck, giving it a little nibble. She quivered, nodding her head so her hair brushed all down her back and over his hand.

JJ’s hand came over her belly. Her skin jumped back from him, contracting almost frantically at how much she wanted it and oh shit, she was so close to the edge already. He let his palm settle, waiting a minute. The smooth wooden beads of the bracelet she’d made him pressed into her skin like a tease.

“Ugh,” she complained, squirming up closer to his hand. He chuckled.

“Hey, if you insist.” He flicked open the button on her shorts and she had to swallow a moan, her head falling back as he lowered the zipper. “Pope’s a sex prodigy,” JJ whispered in her ear. “Wanna feel?”

Her lashes flew open and Pope was watching her with those steamed-over, hooded eyes. She’d never seen this side of him, not like this, and it was messing with her mind a little bit. The way it made her clench way down low and wonder what was behind all that sudden confidence. Because he looked like he knew exactly what he was doing.

Pope’s hands slid up her legs and JJ was holding her, one of his knees propped on the couch as he did delicious, tingling things to her neck and earlobe and bare shoulder. When fingers slipped inside the leg opening of her loosened shorts and under her bikini, she didn’t at first know whose they were. But then they were soft and gentle as they circled, and she knew. She opened her eyes and Pope’s hand had disappeared into her bikini bottoms, his other stroking himself through his borrowed shorts. He hesitated for only an instant when he saw that she was watching, then he gripped his cock more firmly and gave it a deliberate squeeze. She let her eyes roll back, riding his hand so his fingers slipped inside her.

A second later his thumb found her clit and she squeaked.

“Softer?” Pope’s voice rumbled, but he was already doing it perfect, and JJ was kissing her lips again and this moment felt better than anything that had ever happened in her entire life.

Then JJ was murmuring something to Pope and his hand pulled out of her shorts. She made a protesting sound before JJ tumbled down onto the couch with her stretched out full length on top of him now. He grinned up at her, full dimples and happy blue eyes, and stole a kiss. “Hey.”

She leaned down and bit at his lower lip, because he had her revved now and she _wanted_ things, so many things.

He growled. “Do that again, harder.” So she was kissing and biting and pressing closer when she felt Pope’s hands climbing up her legs, swerving to her inner thighs, then they slid all the way under her bikini bottoms, palming her ass and his thumb dipping inside where she was wet. She whimpered and Pope paused.

“No?” JJ asked.

“Feels good,” she gasped out. “Just not used to being touched so many different places at once.”

Pope kissed her hip, just above the edge of her shorts. “I like it,” he said, and swapped his thumb for two fingers, pushing inside her. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and kissed JJ for all she was worth, riding Pope’s hand. But his fingers weren’t getting where she needed them and it was maddening more than satisfying. She pulled back from JJ. “Curl your fingers,” she murmured. “No, not there. Forward more. Like—oh!”

JJ chuckled as he listened to them, the sound more like a rumble in his chest beneath her, his skin hot against her bare breasts. His fingers trailed tingling trails along her shoulder blades, playing in her tangled hair. “Harder than you think,” he advised Pope, and then that deep, particularly satisfying kind of pleasure thrummed through her as he hit the right spot even more squarely. She dropped her head on JJ’s shoulder, unable to concentrate when Pope was setting a throbbing, deep rhythm, fucking her more efficiently with his fingers than any of her island boyfriends had ever managed with their cocks.

“I want—” she gasped, her legs clenching against JJ’s hips. “I don’t want to come this way, I want—” She wanted it deep and hard, hips pounding against hers but her mind was all mixed up. She wanted _both_ of them, not just one, and she couldn’t sort out what to do about that.

“Can you get those shorts?” JJ murmured and then she was empty and aching as Pope tugged her shorts down her legs. A second of self-consciousness shot through her as the denim came off over her ankles and she tucked her head into JJ’s neck so he wouldn’t see. “Yours, too, bro,” he said with a laugh riding under his voice.

“My shorts? Oh right.” Uneven thumps shook the floor and she looked up to see Pope tripping on the shorts, stumbling as he kicked them away, and she couldn’t help but grin.

“Same old Pope.”

“Weird Pope,” JJ supplied, giving her a little hug against his chest. But she wasn’t laughing anymore, because her best friend Pope was purely naked and he was all smooth, flat muscle and a thick, hard cock that he gave a restless tug to as he came back to the couch. Her mouth went dry and her inner muscles squeezed and she was nervous and ruthlessly turned on and a little dizzy all at once.

It was such a mind-bender, to be on this same bed with these same boys, who she’d slept next to a thousand times. But to have those same boys suddenly playing with every part of her body, building desire hotter in her than she’d ever felt it before. She pressed against JJ, restless with how close she’d been to coming when Pope stopped.

“We leave you hanging?” JJ murmured, brushing a kiss over her forehead. Her heart gave a hard punch at the absent sweetness of the gesture, the intimacy of his words. “C’mere.”

Fabric was pulling tight under her legs as Pope tugged at JJ’s shorts and JJ’s hands cupped her ass through her bikini bottoms, his rings hard against her skin as he boosted her up toward his face.

“JJ!” She squeaked as she tried to catch her balance again, her knees coming to rest on either side of his head. He grinned, his eyes flaring. “Pretty please let me? It’s my favorite.”

She choked, her chest clamoring, and all she could do was grip the back of the couch with one hand, the armrest with the other as he thumbed her bikini bottoms aside and gave her a long, gentle lick.

“Oh God,” she said, her hand rising to her own hair and fisting in it, tugging like that might somehow ground her against the impossible amount of sensation he was sending torching through her body.

Then JJ made some kind of growling yell sound against her and she turned her head to see Pope pulling JJ’s cock out of the open fly of his tugged-down shorts. Pope didn’t glance up, just gave the tip a lick and then sank the whole length of JJ’s shaft into his mouth. She couldn’t blink, her nipples drawing up painfully tight.

JJ turned his head beneath her, giving her inner thigh a little nibble that snapped her head back to him. His eyes gleamed, hazy and happy all at once. “You like to watch?” he murmured.

She nodded, a little surprised at herself. There was an odd tug inside her to see them together. The same as when she saw them hug, but…more layered.

“Shit, that’s hot,” JJ said.

Still holding her eyes, he lifted his head and kissed her between the legs. Respectfully, like he was kissing her hand at the bottom of a palace staircase. Her heart gave a little flutter and then his tongue flicked against her and she lost her head entirely to the filthy things he was doing with it. She gulped down a breath, turning her head to watch Pope swallowing JJ down deep. Everything in Kiara clenched tight, the waves of pleasure coming one after another so ferociously that she fell forward, crying out as she caught herself on the arm of the couch. JJ’s tongue gentled and he didn’t pull away, just coaxed her on and on until she was pretty sure her legs were going to give out before she ever stopped coming.

“JJ, we have to pull out the couch,” was the next thing she heard in a very serious, very urgent Pope voice.

“Hey, give her a minute. Go get the stuff from my backpack, would you?”

Kiara’s legs were still twitching with aftershocks and she wasn’t totally sure how she’d gotten from kneeling to bundled back into JJ’s arms, his thumb brushing her hair back from her face as he murmured quiet kisses against her forehead.

“Up,” Pope said, and Kiara groaned a protest, her legs feeling like jelly. But then JJ picked her up, only staggering a little as he stood. The clatter of the old pull-out sounded and then the mattress was under her back, JJ warm at her side, and then Pope’s smooth skin slid along her other side, his hand laying soft on her belly. Her eyes stung suddenly. The feeling inside her was exactly like it had been the day when she’d first come home to the Pogues after the whole mess with Sarah, and they let her inside.

“You’re really pretty,” Pope whispered.

She turned her head and he smiled, a little bashfully.

“Always figured you’d throw me overboard if I said that, but I always wanted to.”

She cupped his face, brushing his lips with her thumb. “This is your first time, isn’t it? With a girl, I mean.” At her side, she heard JJ choke down a breath. Pope nodded. “C’mere,” she said, and pulled off her bikini bottoms. He just stared, frozen, until she tugged him on top of her, her thighs edging apart to make room for his hips. He was so much more muscular than she’d somehow ever noticed. His back ropey and hard under her palms as he pulled back just enough that JJ could slick him with lube and a condom.

Kiara cocked her knee up at Pope’s side and reached down, guiding him into her. She was still soaked and sensitive from her first orgasm, and she had to stop him halfway in, gripping his shoulder and wriggling a little to adjust. Pope’s breaths were short, his eyes blown wide, and JJ’s hand came up and cupped the back of his neck, squeezing for a second. Pope’s eyes closed, his head drooping, and when they came back open they were sensual, hazy as he pushed the rest of the way into her with a thick groan.

Kiara’s fingernails bit into his shoulders as he bottomed out in just the right place, and he gave her a short, sharp thrust that did it again. She gasped, then laughed. “You have got to be the fastest learner on Planet Earth.”

He smiled and dropped his head, kissing her slow and sweet. But then her head dropped back as he pumped into her with a volley of deep, toe-curling thrusts. “God—oh—” she gasped, and then JJ’s hand was sliding over her belly, his agile fingers pulling the hood back from her clit so every tiny thrust was suddenly the most acute thing she’d ever felt and it was building…building.

Kiara swore and dug her heels into the mattress, tilting her hips as she sought just the right angle. She hadn’t thought she’d finish with Pope on his first freaking time, but he was hitting just the right rhythm, hard and not too fast, and JJ’s fingers were taking her that little bit extra without rubbing too much like guys always did. She arched up, her shoulders digging down into the bed. “Pope, just—real deep and ah!” She choked on the exhale as she clamped down around him and he made a small sound of surprise.

“Oh, you’re—I can _feel_ it.” He sounded awed and she fell back against the bed, blinking her eyes hazily open as JJ made a choked sound. Pope’s eyebrows were still up. “I didn’t think I’d be able to feel it,” he said. “When you—” He smiled, the light of it spreading all across his face and she had to pull him down and kiss his cheek because he was adorable and proud of himself, and still hard as holy hell inside her.

“Pope,” JJ said, his voice low and strained. “I want you to—”

Pope’s head came up and his eyes darkened. JJ scrambled for the condoms. Pope pulled away and she squeaked in protest but then JJ was back, stuffing a condom onto his cock as he dropped to kiss her ferociously, teeth and tongue and all breathless when he growled, “I want to fuck you.”

Lust bolted down into her like she was already being penetrated, and Kiara would have sworn she hated that term until she heard it growled from JJ’s kiss-swollen lips. The lube bottle clicked open and JJ’s body jerked against her. Her eyes came open and his were shut and she could see Pope, his wrist flexing as his fingers worked JJ from behind, his other hand coming forward between JJ’s legs to cup his balls and leave them slick with lube. It was nothing she’d ever watched before and she _liked_ it. She got wet all over again in a rush, clutching at JJ’s shoulders to pull him close to her. He nipped her neck, half feral with his blonde hair flying everywhere as he tumbled her over onto her side and came up to take her from behind.

She cried out, wanting it so bad she could hardly hold still as the head of his cock teased her opening. “Hold on,” he said through his teeth and when she turned her head she could see Pope had come down onto the bed with them, the lube in one hand as he played with JJ with the other. His eyes were as wild as JJ’s now, hot and laser-focused and she reached over and pulled Pope toward her for one searing kiss before she let him go. He lay down behind JJ and Kiara scooted back, pressing herself into JJ’s lap until he caught her around the waist and took her with one stabbing thrust.

“Ah!” It knocked all the air out of her, stretching her and from this angle it felt so, so deep. His knee fought its way between hers, parting her legs as he fucked his way even further into her. Her nerve endings were rockets, screaming up into the atmosphere and she was crying out constantly, making sounds she didn’t even have words for as he yanked her back closer to him, his hips pounding her ass as he hammered inside.

“Fuck,” he said between gritted teeth and Pope said, “Ready?”

“One more,” JJ said, and pulled all the way out, catching her knee and pulling her leg wide as he stroked slowly back in, letting her feel every inch until he bottomed out and then ground hard against her G-spot. She squeaked, squeezing and going liquid around him. “Do it,” JJ said to his boyfriend, and went still, buried all the way inside her.

She felt it when Pope took his ass. The tension in JJ’s legs, the clench of his abs to steady himself against the thrust. Goosebumps raked the front of her body all the way to her scalp and she caught JJ’s hand, wrapped over her waist. Squeezed his fingers with hers. He squeezed back, his shoulders arching away from hers as she heard them kissing. Then her body jumped under Pope’s first thrust, translating all the way through JJ to her.

“Oh God,” she inhaled, arching closer so she could feel JJ’s cock push deeper in her every time Pope pounded him from behind. It was dirty, and thrilling, and she never wanted it to stop.

“You’re _mine_ ,” JJ growled, and she didn’t know which of them he was talking to, because then he started to move, sliding into her, and then jerking himself back to take Pope deeper. He groaned deeply, thrashing between the two of them. Pope reached forward and gripped her hip, anchoring her tighter and then it all felt even _better._ When it thrust her into an unexpected climax, she had to reach back and touch JJ to slow his thrusts as she clenched down on him, coming with a long, slick squeeze on his hard cock.

But three orgasms might have been her limit, because when he started to move again, her whole body shrieked its sensitivity and she had to shake her head, rolling away. He caught her hand, his eyes hazed with sex as he squeezed a question and she smiled her answer. Then Pope rolled him onto his knees and JJ was grunting, “Hard,” and Pope was hammering him down into the mattress. JJ ripped off his condom and gripped himself, jerking frantically until he erupted all at once, splattering the sheets. Still, Pope wasn’t done and JJ braced and took it, moaning roughly as the other man gripped him by the hips and rammed deep and then shuddered still. She watched the waves quake through Pope’s body, the way his abs twitched and flexed and his face contorted, then relaxed all at once.

“Jesus,” JJ said, with feeling, and flopped down on the bed. Pope had a roll of paper towels, because of course he did, and then the condoms were whisked away. He cuddled in behind JJ, his face tucking into his neck as their breathing slowed. JJ didn’t open his eyes, just caught Pope’s hand and gripped it, wrapping his boyfriend’s arm further forward around JJ’s chest. They exhaled at the same moment.

Kiara’s heart cramped. They were perfect together. So sweet, and hot, and what the hell had she _done_?

She scooted quickly toward the edge of the pullout bed, the tears coming so fast they were choking her before her toes even touched the ground.

“Kie?” JJ caught her wrist, always so much faster than you expected him to be. “Are you…shit, are you _crying_?”

Pope bolted upright. “Oh God, what did we do wrong? Are you hurt? Did we—”

She shook her head, tugging her wrist away from JJ as she searched through blinding tears for any flash of red that could be her bikini. “I have to go.”

“Kie, it’s raining like the end of the fucking world out there. Why would—are you…mad?” JJ sounded bewildered.

She coughed on a sob that wrenched its way up her throat. She saw a piece of her bikini and tried to step into it, but it was the top. “I don’t want to mess you guys up. It was selfish to want in, even for a night, when you’re so…” Her voice caught. “Beautiful. Together, you are. _God_.”

“Please,” Pope said, bursting off the couch and grabbing her hand. “Please, don’t go.”

She shook her head, her tangled hair slapping at her bare shoulders as it flew. “I can’t do this, Pope. The one night, never-tell-anyone, it-never-happened thing. I don’t know how I thought I could.”

Pope’s grip tightened, and he took a step closer. All tall and lean and unashamedly naked and why couldn’t he throw in a little awkward just to make it easier for her, now of all times?

“Kie,” he said slowly, his tone different. “What if we all…”

Her head jerked up. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying.

“I will fuck the shit out of both of you,” JJ said. “ _Yes_.”

“It’s not about sex,” Pope said.

“But it could be,” JJ said immediately.

Pope let her go and turned back to the bed. She hesitated, holding her bikini top crumpled to her chest. He couldn’t really mean—no, they wouldn’t. She refused to let even the scrap of hope begin to grow in her.

“JJ, look at me.” Pope touched his face, their eyes locking. “Don’t play with her. I _know_ how you feel about me. Is it like that with Kie, or is it like really good sex and a friend we love?”

Kiara’s heart tripped over itself. She threw her bikini strings around her neck, yanking at them in some attempt to remember how to make a knot. “Forget it, I made it complicated.”

JJ bounded off the bed and caught her by the waist, her top swinging uselessly from her neck, covering nothing. “Hey. Don’t be stupid. You know you’re the precise fucking opposite of ‘some girl.’ You _know_ how I feel about you, and you know how Pope feels about you…” He paused. “Okay, maybe you didn’t. Maybe none of us did, entirely. But today? _This_?” He waved a hand like the scorching heat between the three of them might have left a mark on the room itself. “I think this pretty much speaks for itself.”

She ducked her head, stole a glance back up at him. “You’re saying the three of us like…together. Not just in bed, but for real?”

“Oh, _fuck_ yes,” JJ said, his voice dropping half an octave deeper, his eyes flaming brighter.

“People do,” Pope piped in. “I read about all about it online, when I was researching. Polyamory isn’t just like those shows about all the sister wives. It’s also for people in an equal and committed relationship, even when there’s more than two. It’s not just us,” he said, almost desperately. “It’s a thing. It could be _our_ thing, if…you know. If you both wanted. Too.”

She looked to Pope, the hope she hadn’t wanted to allow herself beginning to grow into a smile that felt like it was lighting up her whole body. It wasn’t just her. Oh thank God, it wasn’t just her who was feeling all these crazy, confusing things. And of course it was Pope, their plan man, who had the answer to how it could all actually work out.

She met his gaze, and nodded.

Pope’s eyes flicked from her, to JJ, and he took a tentative step closer. “Are you sure, though?” he said to her. “Because you told me once you want to travel the world, ride camels, and you know I’ve got to go to college and—”

“How old fashioned _are_ you?” She snorted, her confidence rebounding as if JJ’s hands on her waist had anchored her back into herself. “Like just because we’re dating, I can’t ride a camel without you? We’re not getting fused at the hip, asshole.” She pulled him into her and JJ’s embrace, cupped his cheek and kissed him until his lips started to turn up toward a smile again. “It’ll be fine. We’ll figure it out. I _want_ to figure it out.”

“Yeah.” Pope looked at her, that _thing_ between them settling in like it might be permanent. “With us, before, it wasn’t…”

“Right,” she finished, then nodded, thinking exactly the same thing. They’d felt on other wavelengths back when they’d briefly kissed the first time, and now, it was like a DJ had spun their two competing songs until the beats matched exactly. “Think we were waiting on JJ.”

The blond man was watching them, grinning brilliantly. He made a heart shape with his hands and added in a falsetto, “You complete me.”

“Nah, that’s it.” Kiara backed up and swatted him away. “This whole thing is off. I’m gonna get a hamburger instead.”

He jumped in front of her when she pretended to turn for the door. “Nope. You’re stuck with us now. You said.”

She pulled off her half-tied bikini top just to toss it in his face, fighting back a smile. But then she shivered a little in the rain-chilled air. Pope swooped up the discarded JJ hoodie off a chair and pulled it down over her head, then two sets of arms tipped her back into the bed and she found herself in a tangle of arms and legs and soft cotton. JJ pulled her hood up then slung an arm around her neck and rubbed his knuckles over her hair while she squirmed and tried to tickle him.

“JJ!” Pope rebuked. “You can’d do that now that she’s our girlfriend.”

“Our girlfriend, huh?” Kiara smiled softly. “I like the sound of that.”

#

Hours later, the sunset had slipped into night, and the rain had eased to a light patter on the roof. JJ was lying on his side, his arm cocked up under his head because they’d run out of pillows, watching the two of them. Kiara’s long legs peeking out from under the blanket, Pope’s wide shoulders on the other side of her, his head tipped down against her shoulder. It almost hurt to look at them, knowing he could reach out and touch them whenever he wanted. Knowing they’d both chosen his bed. Him. When they could have had anybody on earth, smart and badass and gorgeous as they both were.

He twirled one of Kiara’s little braids around his index finger, wrapping it tight tight tight until it made a dent in his finger like a ring, worn for so many years it became a part of your shape.

“JJ.” Pope’s voice murmured, a low rumble in the soft darkness. JJ’s eyes flicked up and found his boyfriend’s, and he could tell immediately Pope’s thoughts had been taking the same track as his. His stomach kinked a little bit at that, because Pope always expected to be left behind. He reached over Kie and took his hand, linking their fingers tightly together. He didn’t like Pope lying in the dark that way, worrying.

“Thank you,” Pope said. “For letting me have both.”

JJ’s pulse jumped. When Pope had first said it, JJ’d wanted it so bad, he thought he’d imagined it. Because he never would have proposed a three-way relationship, no matter how insanely bad he wanted exactly that. Would have kept silent and broken Kie’s heart and his own in the bargain because he fucking knew both of them would take that any day of their lives over the risk of hurting Pope.

JJ glanced at Kie, the way she had the tiniest smile on her face right now, even asleep. The way she’d glowed tonight when they’d laughed and tickled and hugged her all over the bed until she’d fallen asleep. How naturally she fit into his and Pope’s arms.

“I kinda think,” JJ said, “it was always going to end up this way. Don’t you think?”

Pope lay their linked hands down softly over Kiara’s belly. She made a sighing little murmur in her sleep, shifting like she was nuzzling into the touch.

“Yeah,” Pope said. “I do.”


	15. On The Dock of The Bay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Keep an eye out for the time stamp halfway through this chapter. The scenes don’t occur in chronological order.

Pope raised his book, using it to keep the sun out of his eyes. There was a little spray getting on it from the bow of the boat but he knew from experience the laminated library binding would protect it well enough. Good thing, because Kie was lying head to foot with him on the bow of the HMS Pogue, her own book propped against his up-bent knees, and he was so happy he might even rather ruin a _library book_ than move.

He glanced up to where JJ and John B were in the back of the boat, fishing while JJ sniped at Sarah’s admittedly mediocre boat driving skills and John B snapped at JJ’s sniping. Kie’s thumb trailed a light circle around Pope’s ankle bone, then she lifted her hand to turn a page. A second later, her fingers brushed down his calf, coming right back to their place, and a smile swelled up onto his face. Because it felt amazing, and also because today, it was just the Pogues, so they didn’t have to hide a thing.

Sarah swiped John B’s beer and kicked up their speed a notch, which was nice because the breeze washed away a bit more of the afternoon heat. She always looked less tight around the mouth out on the boat. Probably, the farther from her family the better, these days. She’d only had her own apartment for a few weeks, which just seemed to mean she fought with her stepmom over the phone instead of in person now. As Pope listened, JJ and John B embarked on one of their super ADD conversations that no one else could follow.

“Tide’s going slack,” John B observed. “So maybe—”

“Rixon’s?” JJ frowned. “Yeah, but Pope’s gotta—”

“I know, Jesus.” John B groaned and played out a little more line. “He only told us he had to go home early to study like six times.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Pope said. “And I told you six times because you forgot the first five.”

JJ shrugged. “Pilgrim’s Point has that little bay, should be east-facing enough to—”

John B was already nodding. “Yeah, fish there should be biting about the same as Rixon’s and it’d be faster to get back so Pope can get his homework done. Oh, hey, so I’m supposed to haul off branches from the Singh’s yard later this week. Pays a hundred flat under the table. Wanna split it?”

This time, JJ was the one already nodding. Pope returned his attention to his book, leaving JJ and John B to their peculiar language of sentence fragments and tangents, rapid fire subject changes that always seemed to circle back to either girls or fishing. It was good to see JJ with a spark lighting up his eyes again. The change in him had been noticable when they went back to school after the long weekend. His jaw always got tighter, his eyes duller, when he was stuck indoors and especially in class. It didn’t help that they’d all had to keep their hands off each other in public.

Everything was better here, out on the boat where they didn’t have to decide who to tell and how and when, and how weirdly people might take the news that all three of them were together. He dropped his hand from his book, squeezing Kie’s knee where it was warm from the sun. She smiled at him and his heart did that giddy little _whoa_ flip that he wasn’t even starting to get used to.

He settled happily back into his book, getting lost in a discussion of Greek cadaver dissections in the third century B.C., and didn’t look up until water droplets started to plop onto him. JJ dangled a plump fish over them, laughing, the weight of it bowing his pole. Kie raised her arm to shield her face from the drips. “JJ Maybank, you keep your fish to yourself.”

Pope brightened toward a smile, glancing between them as his book drooped, forgotten.

“I thought you liked my…fish.” JJ let his pole dip a little, the flipping fins dangerously close to Kie’s bikini-clad body.

“You’re about to not have a fish at all, getting water all over my new book like that.” She made a grab for his line and he jumped the pole up high so she couldn’t reach it.

“JJ…” Pope chuckled as Kiara’s voice climbed, JJ ducking and dodging as she sat up and snatched at his pole. “You’re playing with fire, bro.”

“Sounds like my style,” JJ said, laughing as he managed to tag Kiara’s arm with the slimy swipe of the fish’s tail, jumping back lightning quick before she could catch him.

“Oh, you’re gonna die, man.” John B chuckled, starting to whistle.

“Kill him slow, girl!” Sarah called over.

But Pope knew how this went. It started out laughing but JJ liked having Kie’s attention a little too much, so he always pushed it a little too long, and then she got actually mad. John B would try to clumsily diffuse, which she would take as him being on JJ’s side, which would make Sarah take _her_ side, which would make John B defensive. And then everybody would be mad at everybody and he wouldn’t get to read _or_ have Kie’s hand softly on his ankle.

Except these days, Pope knew how to give JJ what he wanted, _before_ he fucked up everything by not knowing how to ask for it.

Pope caught Kie’s eyes pointedly for just a second before he reached for JJ’s arm. JJ glanced over, distracted just long enough for his boyfriend to pull him down into a kiss.

Pope took his time, nipping at JJ’s lower lip and then licking his way into his mouth. The handle of JJ’s fishing pole pressed into his chest and Pope propped himself up on an elbow so he could linger in the kiss, enjoying the breeze on his skin and the smell of JJ’s sunscreen.

When Pope finally sat back, JJ blinked and grinned. “Well, hi.”

“Hi yourself,” Pope said, the smile tugging at his cheeks.

“Up top,” Kiara said, and Pope grinned, slapped her a high five.

“Hey!” JJ protested. “Where’d my fish go?”

Kie held up his now-empty hook and made a confused face. “Huh. How’d that happen? Pope, did you see anything?”

“Didn’t see a thing,” he said solemnly. “JJ was distracting me.”

He pouted. “That was going to be my dinner.”

“It was about to be your funeral,” she said dryly. “And when it comes to nicer strategies for getting attention, you might want to take a page out of Pope’s book.”

JJ set down his pole and tapped his lips, his forehead creased in an exaggerated thinking face that didn’t quite hide the shadow of his mischievous dimple, always trying to peek out. Pope opened the boat’s waterproof hatch and swept both of the books inside it.

“Hmm, ways Pope has gotten my attention…” JJ mused. “Seems like the way he used to do it was…” He darted forward, scooping Kie into his arms. “You’re going in!”

“Oh, _hell_ no.” She locked onto the low rail around the bow with one hand, fighting his tug toward the water. With her other hand she flicked open the bait cooler, snatched up a dead fish, and slapped him across the face with it.

He dropped her, he was so startled.

“Whoa, careful,” Pope said, darting forward to catch Kie half on his legs and half in his arms before she hit the deck.

“You slapped me!” JJ raised his hand to his wet, slimed cheek. “With a _fish_!”

Behind them, John B and Sarah were exploding with laughter. “Fish foul!” John B crowed.

“Unauthorized use of bait,” Pope chortled.

“You deserved it,” Kie said, dropping her weapon primly back into the cooler.

JJ bent over the rail and splashed his face off, scrubbing to get the smell off. “Oh, you’re in for it now. I’m coming for you when you least expect it.”

He stood, re-seating his hat on his head. Kie lounged back on her elbows, miles of smooth legs and a bikini of Pope’s favorite deep blue glowing against her skin. She batted her eyelashes at JJ. “You mad?”

“You slapped me with a _fish_!” he sputtered.

She smiled, her eyes soft in a different way than Pope had ever seen them before the last week, her smile winding like smoke around his brain until he could barely think. “I was just playing. You still love me, right?” She poked JJ with her toe.

“Uh,” JJ said, and Pope coughed on a laugh, because he could tell Kie’s smile had just wiped his boyfriend’s mind every bit as blank as his own.

Kie crooked a finger at JJ, her smile going mischievous. Pope grinned and didn’t say a word. He knew what was coming, but it was going to be too funny to bother stopping it.

JJ dropped a hand to either side of her, pausing with a half glance back toward John B and Sarah, but Kie didn’t hesitate. She hooked a finger under his shark’s tooth necklace and pulled him right into a searing kiss.

Pope swallowed, wondering if John B would be weird about it if he got in on that, just for a second. But then Kie rolled the two of them right off the edge of the boat. Pope laughed his ass off, remembering ten thousand sneak attacks by JJ that had ended up with him in the sea. For a while, he’d been on probation at the library from water-logging too many books, and they had not been interested in hearing that it wasn’t his fault.

Pope ran to the side of the boat, the HMS Pogue lolling crookedly as they all came over to one side to watch JJ sputtering and Kie laughing in his face, her eyes bright and hair drifting in the waves behind her as she treaded water.

“I hate you,” was the first thing he said, before he frisbee’ed his water-logged hat back onto the boat. Pope caught it and wrung it out, still chuckling.

“Learned your lesson yet?” she said saucily.

“That I hate you? Oh, definitely. I’ve got an A in that shit.”

“She got you so good,” Pope laughed. “She’s got an A in kicking your ass, bro.”

JJ pulled a strong breaststroke, gliding closer to Kie and teasing her into a light kiss, then a hotter one, John B booing loudly. But Pope’s forehead kinked when he saw JJ’s quick fingers go for the tie at the neck of Kie’s bikini, treading water with just his legs.

“Hey, JJ—” he started to protest. That was too far for a prank, with John B here and another boat kicking up wake across the marsh channel. But JJ just tugged at her strap like he wanted to let her know he could have, if he wanted.

She pulled apart, laughing, with that reckless light in her eyes. “If you wanna play it like that…” she flirted, then took a breath and sank beneath the water. 

When JJ’s expression changed, it was to a face Pope knew very well indeed. Pope’s eyebrows shot up. She wouldn’t…not with an audience. Would she?

Before he could decide, Kie surfaced, waving JJ’s board shorts over her head.

“Check,” she said. “Mate.” And tossed his shorts on the boat.

“What the hell!” JJ protested, his eyes darting to Sarah. Pope kind of agreed. Nudity in front of a non-Pogue was clearly out of bounds, and JJ had stopped before actually untying her bikini. “But I didn’t even—”

“But I did,” Kie said saucily, and JJ lunged for her.

They both disappeared under the water. Pope glanced around, and then there was a splash behind him.

On the far side of the boat, Kiara hauled herself out of the ocean and into the boat with one sleek pull. “Looking a little wet there, Maybank,” she said blandly. “Need a hand back into the boat? Or wait, no, guess you better stay where you’re at. You’re not quite, ah, dressed for company.”

John B was laughing so hard he looked like he might bust something and Pope started to chuckle, too. They’d all been the butt of JJ taking things too far too many times for this not to be funny.

“Yeah, don’t you want to come back into the boat, JJ?” Pope teased. “I hear there are a lot of jellyfish in this channel. Actually, I think I see one right…oh that’s not a _jellyfish_.”

“You two sure you want to play it like this?” JJ said, treading water. “Because I’m not sure you do…”

Kie looked at Pope, all innocence. “I don’t know, do we?”

Pope looked at the trunks, looked at JJ. “Oh, I think we do.”

“You guys!” Sarah called out. “I think that’s Sheriff Shoup’s boat over there. Are you sure we should—”

“Have it your way,” JJ said, and he grabbed the edge of the boat and shot up out of the water, stark naked.

Sarah shrieked, John B choked, and Kie dove to protect the board shorts. But instead of fighting her for them, JJ sprinted straight across the boat, grabbing Pope and carrying him up and off the edge with a flying tackle.

The water was freezing and Pope was laughing too hard to stop in time, so he ended up sucking down a huge mouthful, choking as he came back up. “You dick,” he finally managed. JJ just winked.

“Dude,” John B said from up top. “Not cool. You can’t go flashing your junk all around when my girlfriend’s on the boat.”

“Oh, I don’t know, John B,” Sarah said. “JJ’s body’s not half bad. It’s his mouth that gets him in trouble.”

Pope and JJ swapped a quick look, the redrawn lines of alliance clear. They broke apart, Pope edging into the shadow of the boat as JJ pulled himself backward with lazy strokes, grinning up at Sarah. “That so? Want another look, sweetheart?”

“Case in point,” she said, drawing a circle in front of her face with a broad hand. “The mouth.”

“Oh, this mouth?” JJ preened with exaggerated duck lips and she rolled her eyes, laughing. “You know you can’t resist it.”

“Yeah, see, I was going to be a nice guy and give you your trunks back,” John B said, holding them up. “But now? Not so much.”

JJ glanced over, swam a little bit to the right. “Hey, Sarah? Can you give me a hand up out of the water?”

“Oh, fuck no,” John B said, ducking between her and the edge of the boat. “If you want a—”

The rest of what he said was lost to a shout as Pope came up out of the water with one of their fishing nets, tossing it over John B’s head and setting his feet against the boat, giving it a tug to topple him in with a mighty splash.

Sarah gasped and Kie exploded into laughter. “My boys!” she crowed, throwing her fists in the air. John B came up, swatting at the net and cursing, blinded by all his now-sodden hair. Sarah’s protests dissolved into giggles, too.

“Oh, I’m going to get you for that,” John B said, pulling off the net and turning for Pope. Pope yelped and struck out for open sea with hard strokes. JJ dove for John B at the same time as Kie cannonballed off the boat onto his back. All three of them ended up a thrashing, happy ball underwater that translated to a splashy, shit-talking water fight back at the surface.

Sarah was the last one left on the boat by the time they wore themselves out and climbed, dripping, back on the HMS Pogue. She tossed JJ’s shorts to him without batting an eye. He pulled them on with a quick grin of thanks and then puckered a kiss her direction once John B was looking.

Pope rolled onto the boat and reached to help Kie out, high-fiving her for a prank well-pulled. She shot finger guns at JJ, then blew the invisible smoke off her forefingers. JJ gave her a look of challenge and dropped his hands back to the tie of his board shorts, threatening. She curled a finger with a grin in a clear “bring it on” calling of his bluff.

Sarah shook her head, dropping her hands onto her hips.

“I swear, you guys are even more trouble now that the three of you are together.”

“I dunno,” John B said, stealing her towel off the seat to dry his hair. “I think they’re kinda cute.”

“You would.” Sarah swatted at him, even though she was doing that blushy, eye-rolling smile she seemed to save just for John B. “You’re the sappy romantic of the group.”

“Your fault.” John B fell into her lap dramatically, and she squealed at getting wet, trying to push him away.

“You know you love us,” JJ said, shaking water out of his hair, then throwing it back with a flick of his head.

Sarah had cried when John B told her about the three of them. In a good way, John B had said.

“I love you for how how happy you make Kie. Unless you fuck up and hurt her.” Sarah pointed at Pope and JJ. “Then I think we both know what’s coming for you.” She drew a finger across her neck, eyes narrow and her mouth in that playful little half smile that never left you entirely sure if she was kidding or actually really fucking dangerous.

Pope swallowed, because he suspected the latter, despite all her blond hair and hundred-dollar bikini tops.

Sarah winked. “Now, who’s getting me a beer?”

“After that little speech, I’m probably the only one who dares come within arm’s length of you,” Kie said.

John B climbed out of Sarah’s lap, sharing the bench seat with her as he took control of the boat’s wheel again.

Kie went to the beer cooler, then hopped up and danced along the edge of the boat to Sarah, holding out the bottle. Pope stifled a smile, looking on blandly. When Sarah reached for the beer, Kie gripped her wrist and fell backwards, pulling Sarah into the water with her.

Sarah came back up, gasping. “I was on your side, bitch!”

Kie giggled and slapped water at her. “You fell for the beer trick! Rookie mistake.”

“Total rookie,” Pope agreed, bumping JJ companionably with his shoulder.

“Oldest rule in the book,” JJ said, plucking the unopened beer from the water and cracking it for himself.

“Pretty much they made the book just for that rule,” Pope said.

“ _What_ rule?” Sarah sputtered

JJ took a swig of her beer, grinned. “Never underestimate Kie.”

#

**_One Week Previous_ **

**_#_ **

“So like…all three of you?”

“Yup.”

JJ looked out over the waves, listening to the tap tap tap of John B’s beer bottle on the wooden edge of the dock. Sometimes, John B’s tics were so close to his that it soothed both of them, like he didn’t even need to fidget for himself.

“Like they’re both with you, or…”

“And each other.”

John B took a swig of his beer, squinting at the glare on the water.

“So are you guys still open?”

“Nope. Closed as a post office on Christmas. Think I’m sharing them with anybody?”

John B leaned back on a hand, his tattered bandana tied around his neck and rising with each breath. The tide was coming in, and the next wave came high enough to splash their feet. JJ pulled his up, swiveling to lean back against the post at the edge of the dock, looking at his oldest friend.

“I guess I just keep waiting for the surprise to kick in,” John B said. “But it’s kind of like when Pope told me he was in to you. I hadn’t thought about it, wasn’t like I saw it coming, but then as soon as he said it, it was like, oh. Yeah.”

JJ laughed, the pressure in his chest easing. “Yeah.” He tapped his silver ring against his beer bottle, the solidness of both ringing clearly above the wash of the waves.

He closed his eyes, remembering what they’d looked like the first morning they’d all woken up together on the pull out. Miles of naked, beautiful skin, legs all twined together. Kie with her always-semi-grumpy sleeping face and Pope burrowed into her neck, his lips all relaxed and soft and her hair tangled up just everywhere. It had made JJ want to wriggle in between them so his skin could touch as much of both of them as possible. To learn to paint just so he could have pictures of _that_ on every wall and ceiling of his home.

It made him want to smile with his whole body.

“I feel kind of like an idiot, though,” John B said.

“Hey, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, bro…” JJ grinned, leaning his head back against the wooden post of the piling.

“Ha ha,” John B said dryly. “But seriously, how the hell did I not know my three best friends were all in love with each other? Have I been that wrapped up in Sarah? I mean, I only guessed one out of the three.”

“Me and Pope?”

“No, you and Kie, actually. The last couple of years since the treasure, I thought there was something building there.”

JJ frowned, turning that over in his head. The sea air pressed inside the open sides of his tank top, riffling over his skin. Salt air always felt right to him, like the closer he was to the sea, the better. “Dude, she shot me down more times than kamikaze bombers in WWII.”

“Technically those only get shot down once each, or not at all, since they’re suicide bombers.”

JJ kicked at him with one bare, damp foot. “Who cares about bombers? Why would you think Kie had a thing for _me_?”

“She can’t watch when you’re doing dangerous shit.”

“Yeah, but she never does her ‘be so careful’ thing with me like she does with you two assholes.” JJ scowled into a long swig of his beer.

He hated it when she did that shit to the other Pogues. All cheek kissing and wide, concerned doe eyes. He could never stop watching, even though it was never for him. It was like that kind of concern bounced off him like foreign rubber. Kie had parents who screamed, “Don’t go, it’s not _safe_ , Kiara!” Pope’s dad would tackle him right to the ground rather than see him be hurt. But JJ? Not so much.

JJ’d lit himself on fire twice when he was a kid, once because he was smoking after he’d gassed up the lawnmower, and once trying to melt the plastic leg of his broken action figure back together with his dad’s smallest blowtorch. Once, his dad had been passed out. Once, he’d just been laughing from the porch couch. Neither time had he gotten up to help.

He wasn’t the kind of guy anybody worried about, and he knew that. Didn’t mean it didn’t suck.

“Because when she does tell you to be careful, you always go twice as hard,” John B said. “Remember when you broke your leg?”

“Oh yeah.”

He’d forgotten about that, it’d been so long. He’d really thought he could run fast enough to make it out over the rocks beneath that cliff, though. That was the year Pope had really started to get good on a surfboard, and Kie had been high-fiving their friend all day, cheering him on. JJ picked at the label on his beer, remembering how she’d sobbed and chewed him out all the way to the hospital. He’d wished she’d have let John B ride in the ambulance instead because his leg hurt like a bitch and it was really hard not to cry in front of Kie.

“Anyway,” John B said, “It’s the way she always shifts away when you touch and you two are sitting together. If we’re all in a pile, great, but when it’s little stuff, just by accident, she kind of sucks in her breath and moves back like she doesn’t want you to notice she’s into it.”

JJ stared at him. She _did_ do that. And he figured she thought he was a horn dog and was enjoying it a little too much. Which, fair, because he usually fucking was. “Damn. You could have clued me in.”

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up just to have her give you the Heisman.” John B shot him a narrow look. “Can tell you from experience, it sucks.”

“Are you still crying about that? I really thought she was into you, man. Wouldn’t have done it, otherwise.” The corner of his mouth twitched, quirked. “Though it was pretty fucking funny to watch her shoot you down, though.”

John B glared at him. “You’re a dick, you know that? I need to get some better friends.”

JJ nodded easily. “Sure. But who would have you?”

John B cuffed him upside the head and JJ laughed, scrambling to catch the piling with one arm and holding up his bottle with the other when John B tried to tip him into the water. “Quit, quit, don’t make me spill my beer!”

“So what, is Kie pissed at me or something?” John B asked, subsiding back to his side of the dock, because the don’t-spill-my-beer rule was high up in the sacred tenets of the bro code.

“Probably.” JJ thought about it, but couldn’t come up with anything specific or recent. “Why do you think she’s pissed at you, again?”

John B shot him a look. “Because you somehow got elected to tell me this, and the other two are off where exactly? Like, what did I do when y’all came out that was so bad they were afraid to tell me themselves? I know I said something dumb a couple times, when I didn’t think through how it would sound, but they know I don’t actually _care_ , right? You guys are the same as you ever were, and this stuff isn’t really new so much as it feels like you’re…coming into focus, you know? Like when I met Sarah, I felt more like myself than I’d been before, somehow. It’s like that. It’s a surprise, but it’s so not a fucking surprise. And I don’t get why they can’t tell me themselves and—”

“Whoa, simmer down, princess,” JJ said. “I told them I wanted to talk to you by myself. I thought—” He paused, because it didn’t sound so good when he went to say it out loud.

“That if I said something stupid, Kie would hold it against me forever?”

“Yup, pretty much that, yeah.”

John B glared at him. “Thanks, asshole.”

“Welcome.” JJ patted his cheek. “You’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you know you love us. I don’t give a shit if you put your foot in it.”

The rising tide splashed up enough to spatter their knees this time, and John B flipped him off. JJ dropped his legs off the end of the dock and watched the water seethe and foam around his ankles. He liked that about the sea, how it just didn’t give a fuck who was in its way, or what they thought.

“So hey, if this is my free pass to put my foot in it, how did you pull that off, man? It’s like the sister switch but like…I don’t even know what it’s called when you talk a girl into dating you _and_ your boyfriend.”

“Lucky. Lucky as _fuck_.”

JJ grinned and his friend laughed.

“No, for real, I was scared as hell, man. The whole time. It probably would have fucked me up something fierce in the end, being that into both of them, and I just couldn’t _stop_. It was Pope who asked her in. All Bambi eyes and cojones as big as the Atlantic, that dude.” JJ shook his head. “Can’t believe it worked.”

John B was watching him, his beer dangling forgotten from his fingers. “I never thought about it like that. I mean, you see love triangles on TV but if I loved _two_ people the way I love Sarah…” He swallowed. “That would be maybe the worst thing I could imagine. I don’t guess most people would luck out like the three of you, all wanting each other.”

“Fucking _right_?” JJ held up his beer, grinning so hard it almost hurt his face, and John B clinked his with a chuckle.

“So, for how long though? I mean, she’s going to travel the world and Pope’s off to college in California this fall.”

JJ coughed on his beer, the foam filling his throat with slippery bitterness.

“Sorry,” John B said. “I probably should have just thought that, not said it out loud.”

JJ blinked hard, coughing some more. Then he gulped down a big lungful of salt air, but it didn’t sit as easily as it usually did. He stared out at the horizon, the same line it had been his whole life despite all the rise and fall of the tides. Hurricanes could wash away damn near anything, but never the horizon.

Except he was watching it from his own dock now, from the place where he lived with his best friend.

“Man, I thought a couple of guys like us, we get the worst of everything,” JJ said. “Shitty jobs, shitty boats, shitty cars. Wives that scream at us and throw our shit out on the lawn, if we even managed that. But look at us. We’re about to be millionaires, and you’ve got the queen of the Kooks, and I’ve got the two coolest people on this whole fucking island.”

“Hey!” John B protested.

JJ slung an arm around him and smacked a loud kiss to his cheek. “Don’t be jealous, dear. Fuck, isn’t like you don’t know they’re cooler than the both of us. Sarah, too, really.”

“Pretty much, yeah,” John B admitted.

The sunset light was starting to turn gold, the deep green of the ocean nearly black now in the low light. And it should have been ominous with the rising gust of the changing wind, but it just smelled clean to JJ. Felt right.

“I never thought I’d have anything this good, man,” JJ said, his voice rasping low and his beer all but empty. “I know they’re leaving at the end of the summer. But guys like you and me, John B, we don’t get to worry about next month’s bills. It’s just if the lights are on right now. That’s all there is.”


	16. Sleepover

JJ came out of the bathroom at the Chateau, enjoying the minty feel of his mouth because Kie had brought over her good toothpaste tonight and he didn’t have to use John B’s gross cinnamon kind. He really needed to buy his own toothpaste. He’d meant to last paycheck, but then the bike had needed gas, and he’d needed to get laid, and neither his boyfriend nor his girlfriend lived close enough that he could do that without gas money. So it’d been borrowed cinnamon toothpaste all month. On the upside, he had gotten spectacularly laid several times out of that particular tank of gas in the dirt bike.

He smiled as he held out a hand to pull a yawning Kie off the couch. “Bathroom’s all yours, gorgeous.”

“‘Kay. Pope, you still need to brush your teeth?”

Pope glanced away. “I will in a minute.”

Pope didn’t like anybody to see him floss. JJ was kinda surprised Kie didn’t know that, but he didn’t point it out because then Pope would get all embarrassed and stuttery and he wasn’t going to ruin the night of his first official sleepover since the three of them had gotten together.

JJ dropped onto the couch, wriggling into the spot left by Kie until the gap between Sarah and John B was wide enough for his shoulders. John B didn’t notice and Sarah gave JJ a smile and dropped her head briefly onto his shoulder. On the TV, Pope’s Luigi beat John B’s Mario to the end of the level.

“One more or you done?” Pope said.

John B yawned. “Dunno. Maybe we should just stay here tonight instead of driving all the way over to the apartment.”

Sarah lifted her head. “Uh, Kie and Pope are staying over tonight.”

“So? They always stay over.”

“So, they’re _together_ now. They don’t stay over on the porch couch and the hammock anymore,” Sarah prodded.

John B nodded. “Right, so we can take the pullout. The bed in the room is a little wider, for three.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “You don’t think they might want something more than the bed?”

“Uh…” He looked at her.

“Like privacy, douche,” JJ said, ruffling John B’s hair and then slinging an arm around him. “Get your ass outta here to your girlfriend’s apartment and enjoy all the sweet, sweet privacy you have there that we never get because Kie can’t sleep over at ‘Sarah’s’ every weekend without the parents getting suspicious.”

“We’re not going to have sex,” Pope said quickly.

JJ winked at him. “Let’s not pull that one off the table so fast, Chief.”

“Okay, okay, I can take a hint,” John B said.

“All evidence to the contrary, Vlad…” Sarah teased.

“One more level, though. Kie’s still getting ready for bed anyway.”

John B un-paused the game and JJ took his arm back, relaxing into the couch as he watched them play. Sarah yawned again, her head lolling until it was resting halfway between the back of the couch and JJ’s shoulder.

“That’s a cool ring.” She reached over, toying with his rings, then pausing on the smallest. “Looks almost like real wood.”

“It is wood. That’s just varnish, making it shiny.” JJ thumbed the ring, spinning it on his pinkie finger. “My dad made it for my mom.”

Pope glanced at him, and Mario surged past his Luigi on the TV.

“Like a wedding ring?” Sarah lifted her head.

“Nah. Back in high school. I probably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for this ring.” He pulled it off his finger, handed it over so Sarah could look. “My mom wouldn’t give Luke Maybank the time of day, but then he made this for her in shop class and she was impressed. I guess at all the time he put into it. The rest is history and _moi_.” He grinned, trying to ignore the little tweak of pain in the center of his chest at the thought that his dad and mom probably both regretted the hell out of the whole thing and wished it had never happened. The ring, each other, him.

Some days, he wished none of it had happened either. He glanced at Pope, who was already stealing a glance back at him.

He wished it less often, these days.

“So your mom, is she…” Sarah trailed off.

“Dead? Might as well be.”

“I just meant, why you had the ring and she didn’t,” Sarah said quickly. She passed it back.

“She left this on the dresser when she went. Took their wedding ring, though. Probably pawned that one, knowing her.” JJ slid the ring back on his smallest finger. Some days, that hurt more than others. Today, with the sound of the tap running in the bathroom and his friends nestled around him on the couch, he didn’t mind so much. He was pretty much over the tragic parents bit. Old news.

Sarah coughed, changed the subject. Tragic parents were still a sore topic for her. “What about this one?” She reached over to touch the jewelry on his ring finger, an ostentatiously heavy swirl of silver.

“Pope bought me that.” JJ laughed, grinning over at his boyfriend, who gave him a dirty look and still managed to leap his Luigi over John B’s Mario, stealing a mushroom right out from under him.

“Tell them the whole story, if you’re going to blame that monstrosity on me.”

“Yeah.” Sarah pushed at his shoulder, smiling again. “Tell us the whole story.”

“We were making fun of it at the jewelry case at his dad’s store, said nobody on earth would be seen in that shit. Pope dared me, said if I’d actually wear it he’d buy it himself.”

“Okay, but why did you actually _do_ it, though?” Sarah giggled.

JJ shrugged breezily. “I thought, fuck yeah, I want free stuff. Plus, it’s so fat, I knew if I hit somebody with it, it’d cut ‘em up good.”

“The really annoying thing,” Pope said, “is that it actually looks really good on him.”

“He’s got those long, pretty fingers,” Sarah said.

“Ooh you hear that, John B? Your girlfriend called my fingers pretty.”

“Fingers, not your personality, I notice.”

“Ouch, _burn_ ,” Pope laughed, and then set his controller aside as he beat the level.

“It’s okay, it’s all right. It’s an even bigger compliment she can’t help herself from thinking I’m hot even when she doesn’t like me.” JJ preened.

Sarah snorted.

“I’m sorry, Sarah, really,” John B said. “For my poor taste in friends.” He tossed his controller on the floor, then reached over and grabbed JJ’s hand, flipping it over so Sarah could see the ring on JJ’s thumb. “This one was my Granddad’s wedding ring. Did I ever tell you that?”

“Only like twelve times.” She laughed at him. “If you like it so much, why don’t you wear it?”

John B shrugged and let go of JJ’s hand. “I’d probably just lose it. JJ liked it better anyway.”

John B’s grandpa had died the summer when JJ’s dad went on his first bender that lasted more than one night. Didn’t come back for two months. There were days when the only thing he had to eat was ketchup packets he stole off the outside tables at the Wreck, way before he ever knew Kie and could upgrade to free cold fries.

It was the only year he’d ever been happy to go back to school, because then he at least got hot lunch. He never told John B his dad was gone, because Big John would have told DCS. But that whole summer, John B had been right at his side, even more than normal like he sensed there was something wrong. And he passed over that heavy, expensive ring like it was nothing. When it was hard to go to sleep that summer in his empty, creepy house with the electricity shut off, JJ’d just ball his fist up and feel the weight of that ring, always with him.

JJ leaned a little more into John B’s shoulder and his friend leaned right back.

Kie came out of the bathroom with her “Somebody’s in Trouble” face on, and both boys straightened up. “Who used my toothbrush?” she demanded.

JJ hesitated, trying to decide if he should deny or come clean. Her eyes darted between him and John B and she frowned deeper.

“Wait, why do you _both_ look guilty?”

“Depends. Which toothbrush is yours?” John B asked.

She blinked at him. “How many other people’s toothbrushes have you used today?”

“I did it,” JJ piped up, figuring he’d better save John B before his clueless ass talked himself into trouble just because he couldn’t remember if he’d done it or not. “You mack on me all the time, why do you care if I use your toothbrush?”

“Because I kiss you,” Kie said. “I don’t scrub filmy crud off your teeth, which is what a toothbrush does. Also, John B, how do you not _know_ if you’ve used my toothbrush? Don’t you know what color yours is?”

“Sure. I just forget to look, sometimes.”

“Did you already brush your teeth tonight?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Kie ducked into the bathroom. “Okay, seriously?” She came out. “There are five toothbrushes in there and mine is the only one that’s wet. So you and JJ both had your own, and you _both_ used mine?”

They swapped a look. “Sorry, Kie.”

She sighed. “I hate you guys.”

Pope suddenly jerked upright. “Wait, are those my boxers?”

Kie glanced down. She was wearing a thin tank top with no bra and a pair of blue plaid boxers rolled up at the waist until they barely kissed the lowest curve of her ass. Which JJ personally thought was one of her better fashion choices. _Especially_ since those were Pope’s boxers.

He shifted on the couch, suddenly way too warm to be sitting with this many people. He tossed a glance toward Sarah in hopes that she’d catch the hint and pack John B off to her apartment, but she appeared distracted by the way Pope’s eyes were bugging out like a cartoon character.

“What?” Kie asked. “You guys got ketchup on the shorts I brought over to sleep in and they’re all sticky. And I took these from the clean pile! They’re washed.”

“They’re…personal,” Pope squeaked.

Okay, so Pope apparently didn’t think it was hot. His loss. JJ reached over and gave his shoulder a _Chill, dude_ squeeze. “You can wear my boxers, Kie.”

“Do you have any clean ones?”

“Yeah, no idea.” He tried to remember the last time he and John B had made the trek to the laundromat. They’d still been working through that case of Natural Ice at that point, and they’d been onto Coors for like a 30-pack or two. It might have been a while, then.

Kie came over and kissed Pope’s head. “Sorry, I didn’t know you’d care. I’ll take them off, I’ll sleep in my underwear.”

“You can sleep in mine,” John B said. “I did laundry yesterday.”

JJ elbowed him. “Why didn’t you call me, dude?” Now he’d have to borrow the van to haul his own in. Plus, the laundromat was so boring that if John B wasn’t there, JJ usually ended up wandering off into the woods out back and forgetting to come back for his clothes until they were all funky-smelling from being in the washer all day.

John B didn’t answer because he was scowling at the pointed look passing between Kie and Sarah. “Why are you looking at Sarah for permission? They’re _my_ underwear.”

“Yeah, but I’m not gonna do it if she thinks it’s weird,” Kie said.

Sarah threw up her hands, laughing. “If _you_ don’t think it’s weird to sleep in John B’s underwear while everyone in the house uses your toothbrush, then I can’t help you, girl.”

“Hashtag Pogue Life,” JJ said, holding up his palm for a high five but Pope was still looking queasy and hadn’t taken his eyes off Kie. JJ nudged her ankle with his foot, cocking his chin toward the bedroom. She took the hint and went to change before Pope had some kind of germophobic aneurism.

Sarah arched an eyebrow at John B. “So what you’re telling me is I’ve now made out by proxy with both JJ and Kiara because you can’t be bothered to remember what color your toothbrush is supposed to be.”

JJ leaned over and pressed a loud, smacking kiss to Sarah’s forehead. “You’re welcome, princess. And you know Kie and I would mack you for reals anytime, you just say the word when you’re sick of this clown.”

Sarah snorted and gave his arm an affectionate squeeze. “As if Pope would share.”

Kie came back out, rolling the waist on a set of Scooby print boxers. “Wait, JJ, I don’t get it. If there are five toothbrushes in here, why did you use mine?”

“Pope knocked mine in the toilet.”

“No,” Pope protested. “You lifted me onto the sink and _that_ knocked it into the toilet.”

“Your body was the one moving it, so it was you that knocked it in.”

“There are _five_ toothbrushes in the jar, JJ,” Kie interrupted. “So where’s the one that went in the toilet?”

JJ had been distracted, thinking of how awesome that day had been, with Pope. They’d knocked over all kinds of shit besides his toothbrush. But now he stopped to think, glancing to the left and rubbing his chin. “You know, I see your point now. I probably should have thrown it out, not put it back in the jar with the others.”

“You _what_?” John B yelped.

Kie went to the bathroom and came out with the Mason jar full of toothbrushes. Heading to the kitchen, she upended it into the trash. “We are all getting new toothbrushes.”

“Agreed,” Sarah said, making a face.

“Also, JJ and Pope aren’t allowed to have sex in the bathroom anymore unless Kie is there to supervise,” John B said. “You said I must have broke that towel rack and just didn’t notice. Asshole.” He elbowed JJ.

“But we can if Kie’s there?” JJ asked immediately.

“Yes.”

“Sounds like a win/win to me.” He grinned, and Pope hid his face in his hands, squirming. Sarah just shook her head and ignored them in favor of her phone.

“And on that note, I’m going to bed,” Kie said. “Before we find out anything else gross that I don’t want to know.

JJ bounded off the couch. “Yeah, I’m super tired, too.”

“Pope, you better get in there before we all have to listen to them have sex,” John B said.

“You think me being in there is going to _lower_ the probability of sex? Have you met them?”

JJ paused just inside the bedroom door, smirking at Pope’s response and waiting to hear what John B would say to that.

“Hate to break it to you, bud, but they weren’t sex fiends before you came around. JJ had the occasional hookup, and Kie hadn’t had a real boyfriend that she could stand in months. Pretty sure that was all you. But I also know you won’t let them have loud sex if we’re in the living room.”

“We should go,” Sarah said absently. “Hold on real quick, I gotta answer this email first.”

The couch squeaked and Pope sighed. “I’ll try. But no promises.”

As soon as he rounded the corner into the bedroom, JJ grinned at him and Pope shook his head. “No. I already know what you’re thinking and absolutely not.”

“Or absolutely,” Kie said in an undertone. “In like two minutes when they take off.”

JJ pulled the door closed. “I love the way you think,” he told her. She twitched and glanced away and he frowned. What was that about?

“It’s so weird, right?” Sarah said in the living room. “The three of them.”

JJ froze and they all stopped to listen.

“Uh, no, actually,” John B said quickly.

Kie started for the door, her face going hard and JJ caught her hand. “She’s rich,” he whispered. “She doesn’t know how well you can hear through old walls like these.”

“That doesn’t give her the right to—”

“No, that’s what I mean,” Sarah said. “It’s weird that it’s not weird, the three of them together. I mean, I’ve never known a three-person couple, have you? And I mean, people can do whatever they want, as long as it’s consensual I’m happy for them—”

Kie started trying to tug her hand out of JJ’s grip, her expression furious, and then Sarah’s voice cut off abruptly and there was nothing but silence for long moments. JJ glanced at Pope, who looked concerned.

“Well, _hello_ ,” Sarah said happily. “What was that for?”

“I just…really felt like kissing you. Right then.”

“I like kissing you, too. But what I was saying is, I thought it was going to be weird for a while, the three person thing but—”

“I love you!” John B interrupted. Loudly.

“I uh…I love you, too, John B, but I was talking. It’s a little rude to interrupt.”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah, uh, I—”

JJ cringed. His buddy was doing his best, but Sarah wasn’t the kind of person who shut up without having her say. Once she did, Kie was going to breathe flames and his happy sleepover night was going to be left charred and twitching in the wreckage. He personally didn’t give two shits if Sarah thought they were weird or not—if she did, she’d get the fuck used to it sooner or later—but he did kinda wish they could have had this conversation in the van. On the way to Sarah’s apartment. While JJ got laid.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Sarah said pointedly. “I just think it’s not weird at all. The three of them, it just makes complete sense, it’s like in a way, it’s always been that way between them, only now that it’s in the open, they’re happier. Seriously, have you ever seen them so happy?”

Kie subsided, no longer tugging toward the door.

“Individually, sure,” John B said, sounding less nervous now that Sarah wasn’t potentially about to say something terrible. He knew, even if she didn’t, exactly how thin those walls were. “All at the same time? I don’t think so.”

“That’s what I mean. It’s like…” Sarah sighed. “It just makes my heart feel bigger, to see how perfectly they fit together.”

Kie sat down on the bed. JJ glanced away, his throat feeling a little scratchy.

“Sorry we’re always talking about underwear and toothbrushes and shit,” John B said. “You probably didn’t have to put up with that kind of stuff with your Kook friends.”

When Sarah answered, her voice was so much softer JJ almost couldn’t hear her through the walls. “Do you think they like me, John B?”

“What?”

“Your friends. I know they put up with me now, and Kiara and I are good, but the others…”

“Trust me,” John B said. “If they didn’t like you, you wouldn’t be here. Kiara takes the scorched earth approach, and you made it through that. Pope would have engineered a plan to have you win a scholarship to a very far away country, or maybe hired a male escort to steal you away from me. And JJ would have filled your car with sand fleas, and made your stuff go missing whenever you were around us until you went away. If you notice the smell of rotten fish anywhere…well, just saying.” The couch creaked. “They have their ways. Believe me, they wouldn’t have put up with you for this long just for me. They’re not _that_ great of friends.”

JJ frowned and sucked in a breath to protest, and Pope’s hand clapped over his mouth before he could give them away.

It went quiet for a second, like maybe more kissing, and then Sarah said, “C’mon. Let’s get out of here and give them their privacy.”

When the front door slammed, Kie let out a burst of air. “Whoa. For a second there, I thought I was going to have to cut a bitch. I’m glad Sarah’s not a secret homophobe.”

“Would it be poly-phobe?” Pope wondered. “Anyway, whatever it is, I’m glad she’s not.”

JJ snorted. Now that Kie was no longer freaking out about Sarah, and Pope was no longer freaking out about who was wearing whose underwear, his night was stretching out before him in hours and hours of all his favorite things.

“Sarah’s cool. You know what’s cooler, though?” JJ bounced to his feet and whipped around, so he could tackle them both onto the bed, one in each arm. “Sleepovers.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: What do you guys think about the stories behind JJ's rings? I'm so curious!
> 
> Next up, Pope gets a case of the nerves…
> 
> Also, I'm doing an online author event and you are ALL INVITED! It's to celebrate my new book coming out next Tuesday (I refuse to not celebrate just because bookstore events are banned right now. COVID19 numbers where I live are not fantastic). Anyway, so I'm celebrating ONLINE. Unlike the last event, this one's going to be just me, not a panel of authors so we'll be able to get way more in depth about my books and writing process. My fanfic peeps were some of my favorite attendees at the last event so I'd love to see some of y'all there. Click the link here to save your spot: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/michelle-hazen---breathe  
> and then it will email you a link the day of the event (Tuesday, Aug 18, 4pm Pacific, 7pm Eastern).


	17. Always Room for You

The gravel of the marina parking lot crunched under Pope’s sneaker as he turned and paced back the other way. He’d come out here for something for his dad, but forgotten what, and now he was checking his phone again.

He’d texted Kie twice today. Not enough to be needy but enough to make her feel valued, which was in the Top 5 of things Buzzfeed said women needed to feel satisfied in a relationship. Though it probably would have been better if the second text hadn’t been about mummy skin. But the tattoo thing was too interesting not to share.

She’d texted right back, her answer glowing up from the screen at him. Indisputable. The amount of texts numerically equal, roughly the same length and emotional context.

But still there was this pit in his stomach eating away at him, unsatisfied like he was waiting for something…else. He didn’t know what the hell he wanted, he just knew sometimes he didn’t really like his own personality. Why couldn’t he be someone else less tightly wound? One who just didn’t think about this stuff. Guys weren’t supposed to, anyway. He guessed real men were just supposed to assume that everyone loved them and everything was fine all the time. Except people didn’t always love you back and things were rarely fine.

A car cruised out of the parking lot, raising dust in its wake, and he turned toward the ocean. The water always soothed him. The sound or the predictability of the waves, or maybe just that he always knew what to do out there. Whether it was surfing, or swimming, or fishing, the ocean made sense to him in a way that people rarely did.

The boards on the dock rocked a little under his feet, and he made a mental note to re-nail a couple of the looser boards this weekend. If his dad noticed and had to ask him to fix it, he’d scowl for sure.

“What’s up your butt today, Pope?” JJ’s voice made him flinch, and then Pope flushed at his choice of wording, glancing around to see if anybody’d heard.

But there was nobody around in the small corner behind the marina, where JJ had a boat’s motor laid out in a snarl of greasy parts on a fraying blue tarp.

JJ jerked his chin, calling Pope in from the dock. He hopped down off the boards and trudged over to the tarp, collapsing at its edge.

“You’re twitchy as a crackhead, man,” JJ said, gesturing toward a socket wrench at the edge of the tarp. “You good?”

Pope passed him the wrench, then clasped his hands together, draping his arms over his knees. Maybe JJ was the last person he should talk to about this, but he really didn’t have the energy to lie, especially since JJ’d just drag it out of him in the end anyway.

“It’s Kie,” Pope exhaled, feeling the weight of it sinking down through his body like he was filling up with sand. “Like, I don’t know how to work a three-way relationship. How to make sure she doesn’t feel left out or pressured as the only girl. I don’t want to piss her off so she dumps both of us, but then what if she wants to break up with me but not you?” He pulled off his hat and squeezed the brim between his hands, letting it warp and bend until it trembled under the pressure. “JJ, I don’t _know_ how to be a good boyfriend.”

JJ eyed him. Tossed the socket wrench aside and set a bolt in a cereal bowl with a bunch of others.

“Managed just fine when it was just me.”

“But you’re _you_. You’re easy.”

JJ winked, his eyes sparking. “Happy to show you how easy if you want to give that shed a little work out.”

“JJ, I’m _serious_.” He glared. “You know Kie. She’s got opinions and expectations and standards.”

“You saying I don’t have standards?” His mouth twitched toward a smirk. He seemed to be trying to hide it but the flex of his dimple gave him away. “Because I’m the one who landed the two hottest people on this whole damn island. Think that calls for a little respect, bro.”

Pope’s hat sagged in his hands. “JJ. I’m freaking out.”

JJ moved the cereal bowl of bolts and dropped to sit on the tarp next to Pope, bumping him with his shoulder. “Look, being a good boyfriend can’t be that hard. If John B can do it, I’m sure we can manage.” His eye caught on something in the motor and he squinted, leaning forward to run his thumbnail beneath a part, then seemed to dismiss it.

“Right,” Pope muttered. “Because all the guys she dumped before us seemed to find it so easy.”

“Listen Pope, I’ve never had an actual girlfriend,” JJ admitted. “Like, one you keep around.”

“Me neither!” Pope squeaked.

“Right, exactly my point. And we’re starting at the top.”

Pope groaned and crammed his hat back on, pulling it down over his ears until his head ached. “This is doomed.”

“Absolutely it is. But think about it. Of the two of us, I’m definitely going to be the one that turns out to be the asshole boyfriend.” JJ pulled out his pack of cigarettes and gave it a little hop so one popped up through the opening and he caught it between his lips, speaking around it. “So all you have to do is hang in there until I fuck it up, and you’ll be the hero, _and_ get the girl.”

Pope just stared. “JJ, that’s a terrible thing to say. What about you?”

“I’ll be your side piece.”

“That’s so fucked up.”

“But kind of hot, right?” JJ grinned, his eyes twinkling as he flicked his Zippo and lit the cigarette.

“You’re not the asshole boyfriend, though,” Pope said miserably. “You’re the hot one.”

“I thought _you_ were the hot one…”

The corner of Pope’s mouth tugged up and he almost laughed. “Stop making me want to kiss you.”

“So sorry,” JJ deadpanned.

Pope leaned into him, comforted by the heat of his arm, the way JJ didn’t seem worried at all about this. He probably had no idea how many times he’d texted Kie today, if he’d texted her at all. And she didn’t seem mad at JJ. Or Pope, now that he thought about it. Her last text had said she wanted him to mummify her when she died, to preserve her dolphin tattoo for all eternity. Which was actually kind of funny. He liked how funny she was.

Pope sighed. He really didn’t want her to hate him, now that she might actually kind of like him.

“Look, just be nice to her,” JJ said, slinging an arm around him. “And if that doesn’t work, go down on her.”

Pope sagged into his boyfriend, letting their heads come to rest together, even though it knocked the brim of his hat askew. “That sounds so much simpler than it is.”

“Hey, if you want complicated, help me fix this piece of shit Suncruiser engine for Mr. Moneybags McDickface because he promised me a bonus if I could make it run. I told him I’d have this bitch humming the Phantom of the Opera and it won’t even fucking cough.”

JJ got up, popping his cigarette back into his mouth and squinting against the smoke as he leaned over the engine.

“Wait, is there still gas in the tank?”

“Yeah, but the cap’s on. Don’t be such a bitch.”

Pope snorted and shoved him. JJ knocked his cap off and they started scuffling, the cigarette falling to the sand before they called it a truce with a hard squeeze of JJ’s hand over the back of Pope’s neck that made him feel more himself than he’d felt all day.

“Stop distracting me, asshole,” JJ said, picking his cigarette back up. “Just admit you don’t know how to fix it either.”

Pope leaned in and fiddled with it for a moment, checking the few most obvious issues, and then scowled. “This is bad. If we have to call Kie for help, I’m not even going to be able to live with myself.”

JJ glared down at the engine. “Same, dude. Hard fucking same.”

#

Pope pulled his dad’s truck up in front of the house, paying just barely enough attention to stop before he dropped a tire into the crumbling storm drain. He should be feeling triumphant, because he and JJ had finally cracked the puzzle of McReedus’s ancient Suncruiser engine, which meant JJ was about to land the big bonus, and possibly be a Kildare Island hero. That engine was practically an urban legend, since so many people had tried and failed to fix it.

But without JJ’s ebullient grin to prop him up, his stomach was cringing right back into anxiety. His phone started to ding with email notifications one right after another and he frowned, slamming the truck door and turning his back to the sun so he could see the screen of his phone. It was a row of notifications from the library about books he’d reserved. That couldn’t be right. He hadn’t reserved any books since yesterday afternoon.

He opened the first and his heart clutched. “The Feminine Mystique?”

This had to be JJ, messing with him after their conversation this morning. Then again, did JJ know how to put a hold on a library book? Wait, he must, because he’d asked Pope for help a while back to get John B a copy of The Joy of Oral Sex, which he said was in everyone’s best interests. At the time, Pope had thought it was mostly in Sarah’s best interest, but now that John B was spending so much time at her apartment and leaving the Chateau for the three of them, Pope had to admit JJ might have had a point.

The next book reservation he opened didn’t sound much like JJ, though. _I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships._ The last one was _Anxiety in Relationships._

Pope was still frowning at his screen as he walked up the path to his door, so when he heard Kie’s voice, he flinched so hard he dropped his phone.

“Sorry, sorry! I thought you saw me there.” She hopped up off the wicker couch on the porch.

He scooped the phone off the ground and flipped it around so she could see the screen. He cringed while she read the titles. “I’m guessing this means I’m pretty much in remedial boyfriending classes, huh?”

She laughed, her eyes warm as she hooked a finger in his belt loop and gave him a little shake. “It means by my Pope timeline, you should be hitting peak ‘angsting about possible failure’ right now.”

He squinted down at her. “Did JJ text you?”

“No, why? Should he have?” She pulled out her phone and checked the screen, but it was blank of notifications. She put it away, her eyes skittering to the side. “I may have glimpsed one of the Buzzfeed articles in your open tabs yesterday, though. Wasn’t trying to read over your shoulder, sorry.”

He glanced away, chewing on his lip as he tried to decide how he felt about the fact that she knew him well enough to guess so easily that he was having a hard time. It was nice, in a way, to be known. But in another way, he’d way rather that he could pull off looking chill with JJ-levels of panache and nobody would ever have to know how very un-chill he was. Basically about everything.

Kie wrapped her arms around his waist, tilting her head back to smile at him. “The thing about you is, you’re never _actually_ failing. At anything. But you always feel a lot better when you can read your way through a whole bibliography on the topic. So I figured I’d save you the trouble of digging up your own resources.”

He tried for a smile and it came out only a little bit wobbly. “Hey, is it really even a problem if you can’t research it to death?”

She laughed and pushed up onto her toes to kiss him. “If you’re not too busy with your research, can I come in for a bit?”

“Yeah, of course. Why didn’t you use the key?”

She’d known about the spare hidden behind the loose brick since before high school.

“Felt a little too Edward Cullen, breaking in and waiting in your room for you. At least now that we’re dating.” She followed him up the stairs and dumped her bag on his desk, then caught his hand, tugging him back around to look at her. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to say, too…I was wrong. All those times I told you not to tell your interesting coroner facts to girls at the Boneyard. I maybe wasn’t as ready as I thought I was to be giving dating advice.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t wrong, though. My coroner facts gross _you_ out. Actually, sometimes they even gross JJ out and he—”

Kie held up a hand. “Please don’t tell me what qualifies him in _your_ eyes as having an especially high gross out tolerance. My point is, it’s something you’re passionate about. I was thinking the other day about how you love the science underneath it so much you don’t even see the grossness.” She brushed her thumb over his hand. “And it’s kind of a test, right? Because anybody who’s right for you will want more of that passion for you. It’s how you find your people.”

Something pinched a little tight in his throat and he ducked his head, not able to look at her somehow as a smile tugged at his lips.

“Does that mean you’re gonna let me talk about autolysis of toenails now?”

“Caught in my own trap, damn.” She laughed and kissed him, but when she pulled away, her eyes were more serious than her tone had been. “Pope, you’re already a great boyfriend.”

He tugged his hand away, squirming. “Hey, you don’t need to say a bunch of stuff. I’m good. Do you want to play a video game or something?”

“I’m serious.” She ducked around in front of him. “You don’t get to angst in silence about me and JJ if I don’t get to say nice stuff to you. I was just thinking about that night when we first got together. You showed up to take care of the boat, and of me and JJ. Like, how many boyfriends would have done that, in your situation? I was so guilty, and jealous, and _sad_ , and I didn’t think I was allowed to feel any of the ways I felt.”

She took a breath, searching his eyes.

“You made it okay to feel how I actually felt about you _and_ JJ. You made it okay for all three of us. I don’t think you even realize how fucking amazing you are.” She touched his cheek and this time Pope couldn’t help himself. He kissed her. Too fervently for what she liked, he knew it even as he was doing it, but he couldn’t help himself.

She thought he was amazing. That he’d been unselfish that night when really he’d been selfish as hell. He wanted both of them. Hell, even when he told JJ it was okay to kiss Kie, it was partially because he’d been crazy turned on at the thought of it. He told himself it was altruistic, but he’d known it was really just his own secret kink that no one could ever know about. Like a fantasy he could really make happen, even if he couldn’t be there to see it.

Except Kie knew all about it now. And she _liked_ it.

His hands clenched on her shirt, bunching it at the small of her back. He told himself to slow down but she’d already hitched a leg up around his hip, her nails scoring the back of his neck as she pulled him toward the bed. He realized with a jolt of intense interest that she wasn’t wearing a bra under the thin cotton of her tank top. She dropped onto the bed and he put the brakes on before he came down over the top of her and she realized exactly how far into the gutter his thoughts already were.

“We don’t have to,” he whispered. “I feel like we all keep ending up in bed every time we’re alone and I don’t want you to think the only way I want to spend time with you is if we’re, you know, naked.”

She rolled her eyes, laughing. “I think I kind of got that memo during all the years we didn’t sleep together even once, Pope. Now come down here.” She caught the front of his shirt and pulled him in for a hungrier kiss, hot enough that he almost forgot the anxiety in his stomach for the first time all day. But when he felt the tug at the button of his shorts, fresh guilt jockeyed through him.

“Wait, should we?” He pulled back to say. “Without JJ?”

Her lips were a little swollen, her eyes that deep brown they got when she was turned on, and his cock kicked harder, knowing how crazy it drove JJ when she looked like that. Pope’s hand climbed her bare leg, his thumb seeking inside the line of her shorts on instinct before he realized what he was doing and stopped.

She sat up. “When we talked about it I thought we decided we didn’t all three have to be together every time. That all of us have relationships with each other and sometimes that’s as couples and sometimes that’s all together.”

“Yeah, I mean, yeah.” They had talked about all that, and it had made sense. When JJ was right there, looking all clear-eyed and happy with his hand in Kie’s and his head in Pope’s lap. But he couldn’t see JJ right now, so how could he know if their boyfriend would be okay with this right now?

Kie paused, glanced down. “Can I tell you something?”

Pope was immediately distracted by the promise of a secret. He nodded quickly.

Kie tugged at her bracelets. “I kinda have been wanting to…I mean with just us alone.” She looked up, her eyes hitting his with a jolt that translated straight into his pulse. “Because it’s so different with you than it is with me and JJ. I want to be in just that without any of the other dynamics and chemistry and stuff going on.” Her voice dropped, until she was almost whispering even though they were the only ones in the house. “It feels really…right, with you. But in a weird way like we’ve…anyway. I don’t know.” She bit her lip. “Do you feel any of that? You can tell me if I’m just being crazy.”

His eyes widened, listening to her.

“Yes,” he said immediately. “When we kissed the first time, and then again that first night when you took my hand. Like, a lot. But I don’t know what to call it. Because even from the first time with JJ, when I was still freaking out, it felt right. And with you, it feels…right, just like you said. But a different flavor of right entirely, so I feel like there should be another word but I don’t know what it is.”

Kie was nodding, a smile growing as the shyness fell away from her face again. “That exactly. Oh, but if you don’t feel comfortable with just us, that’s okay. I’ll uh—” She tugged her shirt straight, not looking at him. “I can go, no worries.”

“No, just let me text JJ and ask first.” He pulled out his phone, but just having the weight of it resting in his palm, he could already picture JJ’s words appearing on the screen. The way he’d tease him for worrying until Pope ended up smiling down at his phone like an idiot. “I know what he’ll say,” Pope realized. He put the phone aside. “It’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” Kie looked worried now and he slid his fingers between hers, remembering how it had felt when she’d taken his hand that first night. Like she trusted him to lead. Like he was the kind of man who _knew_ how to lead, and nothing like the fumbly virgin he often felt like, even after his virginity was technically long gone.

Her fingers locked with his and his stomach settled, the last of the anxiety slipping away. He sat down on the edge of the bed and lifted her astride his lap. She caught her breath, her eyes flaring with excitement again. She loved to grind and squirm on him, feeling him get hard through his pants. It drove him to almost twitching with desire, but he loved watching her do it.

He nuzzled his face into her neck, under her hair. Smiling, smiling, smiling at all the things she’d said to him. She felt it, too. It wasn’t just him, lovesick and all alone in his crush, not this time.

Her fingers traced the curl of his ear, and it felt so tingly and awake that he stopped breathing. Had his ears always been so sensitive?

Their clothes slipped away easily, each piece shrugged off in between kisses that got deeper, slower, the minutes easing and stretching like warm taffy. JJ always got rougher, wilder when he was turned on, a perfect match for Pope’s pounding heart and near-hyperventilating sense of need. But with Kie, she softened into him, her body melting onto his like she’d been made to be cuddled and petted and held.

His heart beat bigger with her, steadier. Like he knew how to be in charge because she needed him to be. Her hands slicking the condom onto him were less practiced than he expected, and she forgot to pinch the tip closed. JJ always liked to do that part when they were together, and Pope liked him to do it, like he was preparing him, protecting him. A sexual ritual he never would have thought could mean so much to him.

Somehow, he hadn’t realized he’d love it exactly as much with Kie, but for all different reasons. He flexed into her grip, throbbing with the need to thrust. But it wasn’t hard to be patient as she stretched out on her side, facing him on the bed they’d lain together on a thousand times.

She scooted closer and slung her long leg up over his hip. He had to dip deep to enter her from this angle and it stretched her hard enough to make her gasp, clenching around him and her hands reaching for him and fingers digging into his shoulder muscles.

Pope had never felt so strong in all his life.

“Shh,” he murmured to her when her breathing still stuttered. “I’ll go slow.” He was rocking against her in tiny pushes, the gentle way JJ did for him when it hurt, sometimes. He laid a kiss in front of her ear, listening to her ragged breaths, keyed completely into the way her breasts brushed his chest every time her back arched for more. It was perfect. Too much and not enough and _perfect._

It felt like they could hang in this crystallized moment forever, half-joined and throbbing with need, yet warm and together and totally content.

Pope hoped that when he died, he wasn’t too old to remember this moment. Did it even matter what was still to come in the however many years in between, if once, he’d had _this_?

And then Kie whimpered and curled her hips toward him, asking for more, and he sank hard into her all in one push, his cock gripped tight and his throat dry and tingling. God, he loved being their boyfriend. It felt like everything he’d always wanted, and never thought he could actually get.

A grin flashed across his face as he flipped her onto her back so he could grind deeper, the way he knew she liked.

“What?”

Instead of hiding it, he let the grin spread as he pulled out of her and sank slowly, excruciatingly back in. “What do you think?”

She coughed into a laugh, her legs clenching around him with the surprise of it as she laughed and laughed until he was driving into her so deep that neither of them could breathe.

It felt like an ocean wave lifting them, the inevitability. The way it was liquid and warm, always moving and changing, but it wasn’t even possible to fall from a peak like this…you just crested and kept sliding forward.

He made her come twice—he really _had_ been reading a lot of articles—but it was Kie riding him, her long hair swinging, that finished him off.

She curled into his chest afterwards, the wicked mischief in her smile all gone to sweetness once she’d wrung a full-on shout out of him. Her head fit just right in the hollow of his throat and it made his room look odd and almost poignantly familiar. Like for the first time, he realized he wouldn’t always live here. Would someday have a whole family that wasn’t just his parents.

He hoped that family included Kie.

He thumbed a strand of her hair away from her face, and it thrummed something deep in his chest, like a guitar string twanging. This was so much different than he’d felt back when he’d been just crushing on her. Wider, more…part of him, somehow. Not just about her and how pretty she was and how brave and agile and cool. He wished he spoke a language that had words for that, so he could share them with her.

“How did we not feel this?” he murmured. “That first time.”

“I keep thinking about that, too.” She tilted her head up on his chest, peeking at him. “I guess because it was so fast and there was so much going on the one day we actually kissed. But Pope, don’t take this the wrong way…”

“No, I’m glad we didn’t, too. Not then.” He tightened his arm around her, the warmth between them so strong and certain he couldn’t even remember what anxiety felt like. “Because then we would have been together this whole time and JJ never would have—”

“He would never have tried,” she agreed. “Not if we were already together and happy. And then we’d have each other but he’d be alone.”

She pressed her face into Pope’s neck suddenly.

“Let’s not talk about it, this is making me really sad.”

He held her, bringing his other hand up to stroke her back, and tried not to look surprised at her reaction. Over the years, he’d gotten used to her being almost defensively unsentimental, especially around the other guys. “It’s okay now,” he murmured. “We all have each other, nobody got left out. It worked out.”

Kie’s toes pinched at his sheets. “Maybe we should text JJ, though. Just in case he wants to come over. I kind of…” She peeked up with a lopsided smile. “Miss him.” She buried her face back into Pope’s shoulder and groaned. “God, I’m being such a _girl_ right now.”

Pope stretched for his phone, jostling Kie a little to reach far enough to get it. “If you’re being a girl, I’m being a girl, too.” He relaxed back into the bed and started texting JJ one-handed so he didn’t have to let go of Kie with the other.

She snorted and kissed his chest, her hair tickling his arm as he tossed the phone down and settled her in closer for the wait. He should really get up and run through his flashcards for the science quiz one more time, because there’d be no work getting done once JJ got here. But Kie felt so good, he’d just hold her for one more minute, and then get up and do the flashcards real quick.

He didn’t realize they’d fallen asleep until he woke up with shadows streaking long across his room and JJ sitting backwards in his desk chair, smiling at him.

“Hey.” His voice was quiet enough that it didn’t even wake Kie, who was beautifully naked and sleeping on Pope’s numb left arm.

Pope smiled back. “Hey.”

JJ dropped his chin onto his arms, crossed atop the back of the desk chair. His hat today was blue and threadbare, the cracked snapback held together with a few wraps of electrical tape. “I just keep waiting to be jealous,” JJ said, low like a secret. “Like I feel like I should be jealous but I just…love seeing you with her. It’s a weird, different feeling. Or maybe it’s totally average and we just don’t know any other throuples.”

“Maybe there’s another word for it,” Pope suggested. “Like how there’s philia, eros, agape…” At JJ’s blank look, he added, “Greek terms for different types of love. Maybe there’s a word we don’t know for when the people you love love each other, too.” He paused. “It’s funny, Kie and I were talking about not having words for things earlier.”

“Lot of new shit lately,” JJ said, his eyes flickering to Kie’s sleeping face. “Or maybe it’s like the queer labels you angsted over forever,” he said after a minute. “Some things get closer than others, but there’s just too many shades to name them all.” He toed the carpet, scooting the wheeled chair closer until he could grab Pope’s free hand, pressing a hard kiss to the back of his wrist. “I like it. That’s all. What I don’t like is how fucking tiny your bed is, bro.”

Pope held his arm open, even though pretty much the only space left on the bed was on top of his own body.

“Always room for you.”


	18. The Rooster

**Chapter 18: The Rooster**

Kiara waved her arms when she heard JJ’s dirt bike motor growling down the driveway. “Look natural!” she ordered the Pogues.

John B looked dubious, but dropped into the hammock and let it swing. Pope put his hands in his pockets, took them out, crossed his arms, and then settled for leaning against the back of the Chateau with all the casual lounge of a stone statue of Winston Churchill. Kie gave up, tossing a quick glance at the chicken coop. When JJ’s engine was at its peak loudness, she dashed over to the coop and threw the door open, deciding the surprise would be better out in the open.

“For the record,” John B said, “I still think this is a really bad idea.”

Kie ignored him. And the flip of her stomach. She squared her shoulders and pasted on a smile.

JJ sauntered around the corner of the house, dropping his backpack by the porch door and scuffing his knuckles over Pope’s arm in a gentle punch. “Hey.” The corner of his mouth kicked up, but then the smirk glitched when a rooster crowed.

“Did the neighbor get a rooster?” he said, stepping back from Pope with his face dropping into its pulled-back blankness. Kie’s heart tweaked, because she hadn’t seen that look in a while.

She fought the urge to cross her arms. “We got a rooster.”

JJ started to shake his head, glanced toward the coop, and saw the rooster with the white bow hanging crookedly from its neck. He just…stopped moving. All of him, his flop of hair falling over his forehead.

The word “surprise” died on her lips and instead she took a step closer to JJ. “Look, I know the way we lost the last one, but—”

His head snapped around. “We didn’t _lose_ the last one, Kie. It didn’t fucking wander off. I _murdered_ it.”

John B dropped his feet to the ground, pausing the hammock. “Uh, are we talking about the rooster now? I thought we didn’t talk about the rooster…”

They didn’t talk about the rooster because the one time it had come up, JJ had thrown a full gallon of milk against the living room wall and nobody saw him for three days.

Pope shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and looked vaguely like he might throw up.

The new rooster squawked into the silence.

Kie took a step forward, trying to look as firm and certain as she’d been when she bought the rooster from the farmstead down the road. She laid her hand on JJ’s chest and his muscles jumped under the worn cotton of his shirt. He glowered at her, but didn’t step back.

“You saved us,” she said softly. “You loved that rooster, and you saved us anyway.”

Tears slicked shiny over JJ’s eyes and he glared even harder. “The fuck, K—” but his voice rasped into silence before he even got her name out.

“None of us would have done it,” Pope said abruptly. “That day…the guy with the gun was coming closer and I knew if we didn’t shut the rooster up he was going to find us. But I remember thinking you can’t put your hand over a chicken’s mouth because it’s a _beak_. And my brain just got stuck on that word ‘beak,’ how sharp it sounded, and I just froze.”

John B had gotten off the hammock and he was only a couple steps away now. Definitely within the danger zone, if JJ lost it. Kiara held her breath. This was her gambit. Both the boys had said she was nuts to try.

“I knew we should kill it,” John B said, his voice slow, like he didn’t even like hearing what he was saying. “But I thought Kie would get really mad at me if I killed it in front of her, because she loved the rooster, too, and that’s so stupid, right? Like that guy had a gun and we were about to really fucking _die_.”

He was close enough to touch JJ now, and she saw his hand twitch like he almost reached out, but in the end his hand just hung at his side.

“You were the only one who thought fast enough and did what had to be done and…” John B’s voice stumbled over itself. “I’m…I’m sorry I didn’t, man. Because I didn’t give a shit about that rooster, and you _loved_ it.” His voice broke and Kie flinched in spite of herself. “And you shouldn’t have had to—”

JJ whirled away, knocking her hand away from his chest. Her bottom lip trembled. Shit, _shit_ , what had she done? She’d just wanted one of them to finally admit it to his face, what he’d done for them. How terrible it had been, and how he’d done it anyway, even though it was the hardest for him of all of them. How he’d chosen the Pogues, over everything.

She’d wanted to give him back his rooster.

But this one was quiet, just pecking at the ground, and the bow looked stupid on it, and it wasn’t anything like the bright swagger of their last rooster. And JJ was bent over like he might scream or throw up, his trembling hands squeezing his knees until she wasn’t sure how the bones didn’t crack under the force because she knew how strong his hands were and—

Pope stepped forward. Steady, not stiff anymore, and he entered that force field JJ sometimes got around him where you just didn’t _dare_. Crossing it like it didn’t even exist. He grabbed up JJ’s hand and squeezed it hard.

Kiara didn’t get in his space, didn’t want to push him any further today. But very softly, she said, “They’re not after us any more, JJ. You can have a rooster.”

His back started to quake. John B looked worried. Pope hung on to his hand as JJ began to swear and turned toward the sea, then toward his bike, then…toward the rooster.

Kiara tensed. What if he—

But instead his shoulders sagged. “We can’t leave that fucking bow on it. Remember? The last rooster ate everything, including that rag I left out with WD-40 all over it. He’ll get sick if he eats the ribbon.” He glanced at the rooster, who was pecking placidly at the weeds around the porch steps. “Thing probably won’t come near me, the chickens tell him what I did.”

John B took a hasty step back. “Don’t look at me, they always peck me. I don’t move fast enough.”

JJ looked at Kie, scowling a little around his mouth but his head hanging, his eyes flicking up to her and away again before she could read them. “You put it on the thing.”

She held up her hands so he could see. They were pecked to hell from picking up the rooster and getting the bow on it, red angry marks a patchwork with the super-old Scooby Doo Band-Aids she’d found in John B’s bathroom cabinet.

JJ’s mouth twitched. “Fine, you guys are useless.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” John B said.

Pope let JJ’s hand slip out of his, watching him go as he crossed the yard and squatted next to the rooster. He pulled off the ribbon all in one movement and stuffed it in his pocket. The rooster flapped a couple of steps away and paused, eyeing JJ. JJ eyed it back, then ducked his head. “Oughta take care of her hands, Pope,” he muttered, and went inside.

Kie swapped a glance with Pope, perilously close to tears now that that was all over. Had it gone well? She wasn’t even sure anymore.

Pope smiled, his eyes lightening. “He’ll be all right.”

“How can you tell?” Kie whispered, even though she’d heard the inside door of the Chateau close.

“You can’t?” Pope gave her an odd look.

“Yeah, kinda looks like it could still go either way to me,” John B said, shaking the change in his shorts pockets as he squinted back toward the house.

Kiara nudged Pope. “Maybe go take his mind off things, then. Just in case.”

He frowned. “How?”

She laughed and John B snorted a little, then glanced away innocently when Pope glared at him. “Just go in there. Bet JJ will figure it out for you.” She shooed him toward the Chateau. “I’ll be in after a minute.”

Pope ducked his head. “We do things other than make out, you know,” he muttered.

“Uh-huh,” Kiara said.

“Not that I’ve noticed,” John B said.

“I hate you both,” Pope said.

“Yeah, well you don’t hate JJ, so vamoose.” Kiara shooed harder.

“Why aren’t you going in there?” John B said, not even waiting until Pope had made it up the porch steps. “He’s your boyfriend, too.”

Kiara rolled her eyes and groaned. “Useless. Seriously, you couldn’t pick up a clue if you were covered in velcro and rolling in them.”

“Just out of curiosity, would the clues be the hooky side of the velcro or the soft fuzzy velcro?”

“I hate you.”

“Yeah, that’s going around.” John B gave her a lopsided smile.

She tried not to smile back, and shoved at his shoulder in retaliation when she failed. “I wanted to talk to you, Sherlock. And clues would obviously be the soft fuzzy side of the velcro, because you have to be sharp to pick them up.”

He nodded, going back to the hammock to rescue an abandoned bag of chips that had caught the interest of the chickens. “That tracks. So what’s up?”

She squirmed, put on the spot now that they were alone.

John B popped a chip in his mouth, his cheekbones rounding as he held back a smirk. “Oh, apparently we’re not done with the sappy speech portion of today, are we?” He dusted the salt off his fingers. “I didn’t kill anything to save your life, though, so I’m not sure why it’s my turn. Wait, this isn’t a chewing out, is it?”

His smirk disappeared.

“Shit, what did I do? I thought it would help, telling him that we all knew the rooster was what was calling Ward’s goons over to us and it had to die. Do you think it made it worse?” He glanced toward the house, his face falling.

“Oh my gosh, you’re such a drama queen.” She came over to the hammock and stole his chips, dropping into the hammock and sitting on the edge. “I think it probably helped, don’t worry. If anybody screwed up it was me, by pushing too hard at once. Maybe I should have tried to talk to him first, then brought in the new rooster like a month later once he had a chance to process. JJ’s a processor.”

“You think? Uh, I don’t really get that vibe.”

“Like how he always needs to go off and cool down by himself for a while, before he can talk things out.”

“Oh.” John B’s face cleared. “Like that. That makes sense.”

She toyed with the bag, her stomach too unsettled to eat chips. “Just all this talking about the rooster and all the crap that happened when we were looking for the gold. It got me thinking. Remember when I laid down that ultimatum, and told you that you had to pick me or Sarah?”

He gave her a dirty look. “Can we pretend I don’t? That was low, by the way.”

“At the time,” she said, “I thought that what I really wanted was for you to choose between us.”

“Uh, you did. I think your exact words were, ‘If she’s in, I’m out.’”

“I know.” She met his eyes. “But what I really wanted was the kind of friend who didn’t abandon one person for another. I don’t think I understood that, at the time, but you were already there.” She stood and dropped a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks for that, John B.”

“Uh, um, okay. Yeah.” He pushed his hair back. “You’re welcome?”

“ _Still,_ John B?” She laughed. “You still get stuttery over a cheek kiss when you’re already in love with the most beautiful girl on this whole island?”

“I’d say it’s a solid tie.”

She pointed at him, her eyes dancing. “You’re just saying that because I just told you I didn’t want you to pick.”

“Also, I don’t like my balls kicked.”

“Fair. Hey, I’m gonna go check on JJ. Round the chickens back up, would you? Before we lose another rooster.”

“Low,” he called after her. “Using my best friend as an excuse to get me to do stuff. You know how bad I am at rounding up chickens.”

“Useless, I’m telling you,” she called back. “Why do I keep you around again?”

“Whatever, I’m your favorite friend. You just said so. Can’t take it back!”

She let the screen door slap closed on his words, ducking her head against the laugh that was bubbling up. But then jumped when she realized she wasn’t alone. JJ was sitting in the screened-in porch, smoking.

“Oh!” was all she managed. She hadn’t quite worked up her I’m-sorry-I-made-you-sadder-with-my-apology-rooster speech yet. “Where’s Pope?”

“Went to take a piss.”

She almost called his TMI, but something about his quiet made the room weight oddly around her, and all she could do was watch him.

JJ flicked his hair back, his throat lean and sharp as smoke rippled up from his cigarette, curling over itself in the still air. “I don’t know when I stopped noticing,” he said. “How weirdly quiet it was around here after I kil—after the rooster died. Couldn’t sleep here for weeks.” He glanced up at her. “It’s nicer, now.”

He gestured to the screens and she realized he’d been out here watching the rooster. She thought about asking if he’d overheard her conversation with John B, but then, it didn’t really matter. He’d probably known before she had, that she distrusted people who made you choose.

Her parents had been pushing her to draw lines ever since she was a kid. To hang with Kooks, not Pogues. Go to their parties and schools and stay with “her own people” whatever that was supposed to mean when you said it to your biracial, middle-class daughter. As if the Kooks were her people. As if she couldn’t love Sarah _and_ John B. Kie didn’t believe in drawing lines between people like that. People were people and they could stand on their own merit, always good in some ways and bad in others, like her in some ways and not in others. She knew all the lines you could draw weren’t all the way real anyway.

“We can take the rooster back, JJ,” she said quietly. “If you really don’t want him.”

He switched his cigarette to his other hand and pulled her into his lap. Smoke curled softly over her skin as he buried his face in her hair. “Always thought you were pissed at me about it,” he mumbled. His free arm came around her waist, a little too hard. She didn’t mind.

“No. No, no JJ. I tried to talk it out that one day, but you…weren’t ready.”

He pushed a kiss to her shoulder, through her hair. He tossed his cigarette into the coffee can by the door and she tried to remember when he’d started only smoking on the porch instead of inside.

“C’mon,” he said, standing with her. “Best thing to heal pecks is to put cold chicken on ‘em out of the fridge.”

“That’s unsanitary!” she protested. “And vaguely ironic.”

“Yup. Methods are rough.” He smiled at her, slow and crooked and a little sweet. “But hey, you can’t argue with the results.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: I saw a meme about how JJ loved the rooster and killed it to save his friends and it broke my heart so I had to write this.
> 
> Next up, JJ and Kie gang up on Pope...in a very good way.


	19. Ganging Up On Pope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I think we’re going to indulge in one more happy fluffy moment here before we have to deal with the upcoming conflict points…

**Chapter 19: Ganging Up on Pope**

“Food first, then we tackle patching the chicken coop,” Kiara suggested.

“Okay, but then the chickens—” John B began to protest, then his phone dinged. “Shit, I got a ride, I have to go.”

“Uber?” Pope frowned. “Don’t you have to set it as available to get a ride?”

“Yeah, but if I didn’t have it on all the time, I’d never get anything on this stupid, tiny island,” John B said, already pocketing his keys and flipping his cap around backward as he headed for the van. “Back in a bit. It’s the far side of the island, so probably an hour or so before I get back because I can usually grab another ride over there.”

Kie immediately perked up, and snatched a glance at JJ, who was already doing one of his twinkle-eyed, dimple-flexing not-smile type of smiles. All afternoon, Pope had been parading around totally shirtless. Usually the most modest of all of them, he usually tossed on an open shirt even on the boat, or the beach, or basically anywhere but his surf board. Except today, when he was wearing his tightest board shorts, and no shirt in sight, and repeatedly picking up heavy things and moving them around the property. Every time he did it, it made the muscles flex and play up and down his back and arms, and down his abs where they disappeared into his shorts…

Basically he was killing her. And also JJ, who’d been swapping silent-groan-of-pain looks with her all afternoon. And it wasn’t until she caught Pope stealing a look at JJ, watching for a reaction, that she’d realized he was _flirting_. In his shy, clueless, clumsy little Pope way. That was also somehow tactical-laser levels of effective.

Before that, she’d just thought she was over-reacting because she was extra horny. Having two energetic boys around who adored getting her off had not, as she would have suspected, left her satiated. Instead, they seemed to be revving her sex drive to previously undreamed of heights. Especially since a receipt had come through the PayPal account she set up for JJ, showing that he’d bought more sex toys. But he hadn’t yet revealed the surprise of what they were.

So it wasn’t that unexpected that instead of contentedly enjoying her friends’ company all afternoon as they repaired the roof on John B’s decrepit shed, she had been panting over shirtless Pope wielding a roofing hammer. Now that she knew he’d been tormenting them on purpose, though? It was _so_ on.

One glance at JJ’s glittering blue eyes and she knew he was thinking along the exact same lines. No quarter given. Scorched earth policy. All guns blazing.

The rumble of the VW’s engine faded as John B trundled away down the drive way.

“I’m starving,” Pope said as he shouldered the door open to the Chateau. “Are we out of—”

JJ grabbed him by the wrist and spun him up against the wall. Pope hit with a huff of exhaled air and eyes that barely had a chance to go wide with surprise before JJ kissed him hard, his shoulders clenching as he cupped Pope’s face. Then he dropped to his knees.

“What—wh—” Pope stuttered.

Kie tugged him to the side, sliding in behind him and hugging her arms around him as she caught the button on his pants.

“Kie!” he squeaked.

JJ licked his lips. “Hurry up, girl,” he said, his voice rasping a little. The pulse was beating clearly in his throat and she knew he was hurting as bad as she was. About as bad as Pope was about to be, if they had anything to say about it.

She flicked Pope’s shorts button open and he started to pant, his back rising and falling like a billows against her chest. She pulled off her shirt and tossed it over his shoulder so it hit JJ in the arm. He swiped it away, grinning like the sun rising, and she rubbed all her newly bare skin over Pope’s back as she pulled open his fly. He was already thickening beneath, and then JJ pulled his shorts to his ankles and gave him a long, thorough lick. Pope groaned, his voice pitched higher than usual and trembling.

“You guys…”

“You tortured us _all day_ ,” Kie said.

“Got us worked up,” JJ said. “And now we’re going to work you over right back.”

Kie reached around and gripped the base of Pope’s cock, bringing it the rest of the way to erect as JJ’s hand slid down to meet hers, cupping her fingers gently as he swallowed Pope’s cock all the way down until his lips bumped their intertwined hands. Her heart gave a little twist and she had to take a deep breath.

She wasn’t used to it yet, all the different dimensions of emotion that having two boyfriends could make her _feel_. But the tremor that ran through Pope, shaking him from head to heels, reminded her she wasn’t the only one. She squeezed her arms around him in a soft hug, then surrendered his dick to JJ as she trailed a hand over Pope’s bare ass, moving until she was in front of him enough to catch his eyes. They were hazy, smoldering with that sexual _heat_ she’d never seen from him until the first time they went to bed together. Hadn’t even known he was capable of.

Then she, too, dropped to her knees. JJ swiveled without missing a beat, letting Pope’s dick pop glistening from his mouth as he reached out to her and hauled her closer with an arm around her naked waist.

He bobbed his eyebrows, his eyes alight with a silent dare that always made her heart sizzle and go reckless. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t try to beat him at, when he looked at her that way. Nothing she wouldn’t set on fire.

Pope whimpered, his fingers clutching at the shoulder of JJ’s shirt. “You guys…” he sounded uneasy and desperately turned on, all in one breath. Kie shook her hair back, letting her bright pink bra show clearly as she licked her lips and leaned in, her eyes locked with JJ’s. They came together over Pope’s cock, running tongues all the way down his length, chasing each other around his shaft. She giggled and stole a kiss over the top, then JJ snuck one from underneath, then they were devouring each other and the head of Pope’s cock all at once while his hand fisted in her hair and his head thumped back against the wall he’d sagged into. He was pulling hard enough to hurt and she was pretty sure he had no idea. Pope was rock hard and in her mouth, her tongue swirling with JJ’s. Kissing all her boys at once and viciously turned on…it was almost more than she could take.

She pulled back and clawed at JJ’s shirt. He reached behind his head and ripped it off, then grinned at her, a little breathless. “We going tit for tat, Carrera?” He gestured to her shorts and she smiled wickedly.

“Maybeee….” She toyed with the button, waiting until Pope hauled his eyes open and was watching before she flicked it open. Tugged down the zipper and then left her panties showing through the open V before she leaned forward and gave Pope’s erection a long, teasing lick.

JJ said something that sounded very much like a bastardized Hail Mary with possibly some gutter Spanish involved. She twisted her head and slipped Pope’s cock into her mouth, rubbing him hot and thick with her tongue as she took one inch at a time. She wasn’t entirely sure if the guttural groan was coming from him or JJ, but she enjoyed it. She took her time sliding him slowly back out, giving his tip a playful little lick before she grinned at JJ.

“You’re behind, Maybank.”

He stood long enough to drop his shorts, no boxers beneath because they’d been swimming. His abs were extra lean, the way they got when summer approached and he never stopped running and swimming and surfing. They were a taut backdrop for his erect cock, the head swollen from watching her work over Pope.

Their boyfriend was breathing raggedly, watching JJ and Kie’s eyes lock onto each other as she stood, working her shorts off over her hips.

“Panties?” JJ said hopefully.

She shook her head, lips pursed against a smile. “You got nothing left to trade for them.”

“Truth or dare,” he offered instantly.

Her smile widened. “Dare. Always dare.” She skimmed her panties off and Pope swallowed so hard she _heard_ it. Then she hung the lacy strap of them off Pope’s erection. He blinked, looking down.

“You want them off of there,” she said to JJ. “You have to use your teeth.”

He tugged her back down to her knees along with him, her pink bra the only clothing left on all three of them. And he cheated, because he used his tongue as well as his teeth. A lot. The tongue, on Pope. The teeth, on the panties. By the time he was done, Pope was so hard JJ had to rise half back to his feet to draw the panties up and off his skyward pointing erection.

Kie caught JJ behind the neck, pulling him in again to let their tongues twine over Pope’s cock, into each other’s mouths. JJ’s hand slipped between her thighs, fingertips strumming her so softly in contrast to the urgency of his mouth.

Pope started to moan, his body trembling so hard even leaning against the wall wasn’t keeping him steady anymore. Though he hadn’t, she noticed with a wicked smile, stopped watching.

“Oh god oh god you guys,” he gasped. “I can’t…I gotta…lay down.”

JJ’s other hand was busy in his own lap, jacking his own shaft roughly. He couldn’t multi-task worth a shit at school or work, but for sex, he had an attention span as wide as the whole horizon. Kie could never figure out how he could work over all three of them at once without ever losing focus. He swirled his tongue around Pope’s tip, dropped a kiss to Kie’s cheek, and pulled her up to her feet.

The three of them stumbled across the room, JJ yanking out the pullout so they could collapse on it. Kie was so worked up she fell on Pope immediately, kneeling so she could take him fully into her mouth, hollowing her cheeks and sucking hard just to feel him swell even further, his hands fisting the tangled sheets.

“Kie!” he squeaked. “Oh fuck, if you don’t—I’m gonna—”

JJ nudged her aside, slanting a sizzling look up at Pope. “Do it,” he rumbled. “ _Fuck_ , I want you.” He fisted Pope’s cock, pushing the shaft deep into his mouth as his strong fingers worked their boyfriend. Kiara’s nipples tightened and she pressed her thighs together, watching JJ’s back tense as he knelt over Pope.

“Ah!” Pope clenched his teeth, coming off the mattress as his whole body tightened. And JJ only took his cock even deeper. Kie caught her breath, watching Pope shoot deep in JJ’s throat. She caught Pope’s hand, gripping it as he trembled and then went limp, sinking into the bed with a coughing gasp.

JJ sat up, licking his lips and then grinning like he had the time he’d swiped a whole berry pie out of the Wreck’s kitchen.

“Did you—swallow?” Kie blinked. As soon as she said it, she wished she’d waited for another time, didn’t want to break the mood. But if they were going to do this, she guessed they had to be able to talk about this stuff. And besides, it was just _JJ_ , it wasn’t like he was going to be embarrassed to talk about blow jobs. “JJ, you know you don’t have to do that. Pope’s not going to be offended if you spit.” She shot a glance at their boyfriend. “And actually, sorry if you are offended, Pope, but I’m always going to spit, kinda don’t care what you say on that one.”

JJ shrugged. “Pope likes the courtesy tap so he can pull away. We can do the same for you if you want.”

Kie wriggled up next to Pope, her brow furrowed as she rested her head on his shoulder, thinking it over. “But like, you…don’t? Want the chance to pull away, I mean?”

JJ’s eyes flared. “Nah. I like it.”

He looked at Pope, and she lifted her head so she could check their boyfriend’s expression. Pope looked too fucked-out to be embarrassed, his eyes at half-mast. He shrugged, cuddling her closer into his side. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried it yet, but maybe I should. JJ gets really into it. I mean, would you like it better if I…” He looked at JJ.

“If you let me come in your mouth?” JJ’s eyes flickered to an almost electric blue. “It’d be hot, yeah. But I don’t care if you spit or swallow, after.” He brushed his knuckles down Kie’s calf. “And if you don’t like the taste, I can do the courtesy tap. No worries.”

“I mean, I guess I can try again. It’s been a while since I…” She shuddered. “But yeah, I really don’t like the taste. Or the texture.”

Pope’s chin moved against her head as he looked between the two of them. “It’s so weird we all like it different ways. Now I really want to try it. Swallowing, I mean.”

JJ laughed. “I guess I can take one for the team, I mean, if you _need_ to experiment.” He leaned down to kiss Pope. Kie didn’t lift her head to watch, just smiled and nuzzled a little closer into Pope’s chest as the two boys lingered sweetly over each other.

“Not right now, though,” Pope said as they broke apart. “I kinda had a thing I wanted to try on Kie.”

JJ perked up. “The thing you told me about? From the dream?”

Pope nodded, his chin brushing her hair.

“Oh fuck yeah.” JJ lit up, pulling her out of Pope’s arms and into his, nuzzling kisses into her hair. “You want to take my dick, sweetheart?”

She clenched way down low, going slick even as she blushed at his dirty talk. “Your mouth, JJ, I swear.”

He caught her earlobe between his teeth and tugged, and she had no idea how she could tell he was smiling, but she knew he was. “We got him good, hmm?”

Now she was smiling, too. “Hell yes we did.” She reached for the side table and pulled a condom out of the box in there, passing it to JJ with a kiss.

He and Pope moved without discussion, like they’d practiced this, and she tried to decide how she felt about them planning sex things when she wasn’t around. But when JJ stroked her hair away from her face, brushing kisses underneath her jawline as he settled in behind her, she decided maybe it wasn’t so bad.

Pope scooted eagerly down her body and she gave him a half-puzzled smile.

He froze. “What?”

“I kinda thought men usually quit the field after they came.” All the guys in her life always had before, and if she hadn’t finished and still wanted help to get there, she had to ask for it. Then again, she’d never had more than one guy on hand at a time before.

Pope’s brow furrowed. “Am I supposed to? I still want to…but I guess if you wanted, I could go outside while you guys—”

The smile tugging at her lips wouldn’t be suppressed. She bent forward and kissed his forehead. “I love you. You’re completely adorable. Yes, I _guess_ you can go down on me.” She heaved a big, put upon sigh.

Pope smiled, his eyes brightening. “Just relax, okay? We’ve got this.”

“If you high-five right now,” she warned them, “absolutely no one is getting laid today.”

JJ chuckled as he slipped her out of her bra, his thumb flicking softly over one nipple. “Noted.”

He cupped one hand between her legs, just resting it there while she squirmed a little impatiently and Pope kissed her stomach, teasing her skin with the stubble on his chin that had started growing faster and faster this year.

Pope’s hand caught her leg and scooped it up, resting her knee on his shoulder so she was opened wide to both him and JJ. She caught her breath, her stomach clenching as JJ’s hand traveled upward and flattened over her ribs. He tucked his face into her hair and just held her as Pope’s thumb dipped into her where she was wet, stroking through the layers of her so gently that she started to ride his hand, desperate for more before he was ready to give it to her.

Pope was quiet, his lips soft as they surrounded her clit. He sipped at her, his fingers just barely skimming her down low until she was soaked and clutching at his hair, her hips grinding back against JJ.

She was deeply regretting how hard she’d teased Pope earlier.

But Pope had more mercy than she did, and it was his hand that stroked the condom onto JJ, him who guided their boyfriend’s cock into her as Pope’s shoulder held her legs wide. JJ stroked inside so gently she almost didn’t even feel the stretch over the peak of sensation from Pope’s mouth. She expected him to pull away and let JJ finish her off, but instead he dove deeper, devouring her.

She squeaked, her nails digging into JJ’s arm at the overload of sensations she wasn’t used to having all at the same time.

“Shh.” JJ murmured kisses along her neck, down her shoulder. “We’ll go slow.” He thrummed deep into her, giving her a hard little pulse at the end that exploded sensation like he’d nailed a bullseye. She started to sweat. Her nipples pebbled against his arm where he held her. He stayed for a second, buried deep in her, and she felt the shockwave travel through his body as Pope’s tongue left her for a second and found JJ.

She tried to stay still for them but she was writhing in tiny little convulsing movements, hanging on the edge of an orgasm that felt so big she wasn’t even sure she could take it. She bit her lip hard, trying to slow her breathing.

Pope’s hand flattened over her belly, bracing down low against her pubic bone. “Try it now,” he murmured, then nuzzled his lips back against her.

JJ stroked back, the rake of sensation tingling all the way to her scalp, then thrust in more firmly. She could feel the strength of Pope’s arm as he held her steady, bracing her so he could keep going down on her while JJ penetrated her from behind.

“Harder,” Pope said, and she clenched just at the word.

JJ slammed into her. She squeaked, caught between his cock and Pope’s palm and devious tongue.

“Did it hurt?” Pope pulled back enough to ask. “My hand, does it grind on you when he—”

“Please,” she was already begging. “More, oh my god, oh _fuck,_ this is crazy.”

JJ obeyed before Pope caught up. Her leg clenched tight against Pope’s hard shoulder as JJ railed into her, fucking her deep and hard and it only took one slow sweep of Pope’s tongue before she came apart, sobbing because the force of it felt like it would crack her ribs.

She didn’t even have a chance to catch her breath before they eased back and then slowly worked her into a second climax. She groaned through that one, quaking. JJ flipped her onto her belly and his knees spread hers for his last few shattering thrusts before he lost it, too.

He collapsed on top of her back, his thundering heart a mirror for hers until it felt like they’d shake the whole bed. She blew hair out of her face, searching for oxygen, and then JJ rolled away with a whooshing sigh. “Fuck, Pope. You have the best dirty dreams of anybody. Even me, bro.”

“You _dreamed_ that?” Kie sputtered, too spent to move so she said it into the sheets. “Damn.”

Pope chuckled, the sound bright. She managed to pry one eyelid open to find him propping himself up on one elbow, lounging happily as he watched them.

“So you like it then? I wasn’t sure if it would work, in real life.”

“I’m not even sure this _is_ real life,” Kie muttered.

JJ still hadn’t said anything, so she rolled over and poked him.

“Did we kill you?”

He nodded without lifting his head, his tumble of blonde hair bright against the sheets. “Fucking loved it, too,” he mumbled.

She grinned and found his right hand, laying it on her stomach so she could play with his rings, flicking her thumb over his rosary bracelet. He made a small sound she wasn’t sure she was meant to have heard.

Pope reached over her and slipped the condom off JJ, tying it off and getting rid of it.

She’d never seen men do that for each other before, and she went quiet at the intimacy of it. JJ didn’t even open his eyes, much less protest.

Pope came back and slid in behind him, stroking his hair back off his forehead and then gently nudging JJ up onto his side so they could spoon and Pope could still reach Kie. Pope lifted her hand where it was intertwined with JJ’s, and pressed their fingers to his lips. His eyes slipped closed and Kie’s heart gave a hard, uncertain thump like it had fallen a little too fast without warning.

“I love you guys,” Pope murmured, then squeezed their hands and laid back. “But I’m totally telling John B it was your fault for distracting me so we never fixed the chicken coop.”


	20. Crab Pot Guilt Trip

It’s John B who brings it up first, of all people.

“Why don’t you ever tell JJ you love him?”

“ _What_?”

Kiara looked up so fast, the end of her ponytail whipped across her arm. It had been a long, rollicking afternoon on the boat. She ditched the top she wore at school for a tank top JJ’d outgrown so they could go out and pull crab pots for their dinner. The heat of the sun was still radiating from her skin, she was happy and full, and had just kissed Pope and JJ goodbye so they could both go to work at the marina. She set the crab trap down on the dock with a bang. This was just about the last thing she wanted to talk about right now.

The Chateau was supposed to be their safe space. It was so weird everywhere else right now: school and the marina and everywhere where people didn’t know the three of them were together. It felt wrong to stop herself from reaching for them at school. Every time she did it, she felt like their relationship was something bad somehow, that she had to hide, and she hated that. But she also knew bringing it out in the open was going to be…a whole thing.

This close to graduation, part of her wanted to just skip it. Shrug off the high school drama altogether because they were about to be out in the wider world and leave this tiny sandbox behind them. Why give their peers one last chance to judge them, when really the only people’s opinions she cared about were the ones who already knew?

She scowled at John B. Because apparently the Chateau wasn’t a judgment-free zone after all.

John B set the last empty crab trap on the stack and yanked at the bandanna around his neck, squinting at her. “He and Pope say it all the time, _you_ and Pope say it all the time, but you and JJ…”

“His ego doesn’t need any help, I promise you.” She snorted. “JJ’s fine.”

A memory from last night rose in her head, of her and Pope competing over who could get JJ closest to exploding without letting him go all the way over. He had started hyperventilating, which made Pope laugh, until Kie pulled out a new move she’d just learned on the internet, and then Pope started hyperventilating, too.

Now, she tried to think back to what she’d said before they left for their shift at the marina. _Love your face_ , to Pope before kissing his cheek…and pinching his butt just to see him blush.

 _Oh, don’t even!_ To JJ, who’d snuck up behind her and started tickling her around the waist, which led to her trying to catch his hands, and him scooping her into his arms and kissing her until she couldn’t remember if she’d said anything else. She’d still been catching her breath by the time his bike engine revved and he and Pope took off in a plume of dust, laughter, and testosterone.

“Kie.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Drop it, John B.”

She walked up the dock, but his long strides caught up with hers without him even having to hurry, which irritated her more. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and matched her pace. Didn’t say a thing.

She glared at the ground, hating him for always being so stubborn. Hating him for sticking his nose into it at all. And then they were beside her car and she didn’t really want to leave but she wanted him to let this go because it really didn’t have to be a big deal. Except if she left like this, right now, it would officially be a big-ass deal.

She exhaled, the sound growling a little with her frustration.

“JJ’s never said it to me, okay?” she snapped toward his left shoulder, with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Not once. He says it to all you guys like it’s nothing and—” She pulled off her sunglasses andswiped at her eyes, hard enough her knuckle dug into one and left white dots dancing in her vision. “He and Pope were together first.” Her voice dropped, barely audible as she spit it out fast. “So fine. Maybe he’s into me, he thinks I’m hot, but it’s not _that_ way for him.”

John B paused. “How dumb are you?”

She burst out laughing, then the sound died in her throat in a little hiccup of a cough. “Thanks a lot.”

“C’mere.”

She slid on her sunglasses, blinking rapidly and ignoring his outstretched arms. “I don’t need a hug, _Mom_ , go home.”

“You’re getting one anyway.” He enveloped her in a full John B-style bear hug, smelling of sweaty boy and crab pots and saltwater, his old polyester Hawaiian shirt too slick against her skin. She pressed her lips together firmly, but one tear betrayed her, sneaking out from beneath her sunglasses as he squeezed her tight.

“He needs to hear it. Maybe more than anybody. So yeah, you’re probably going to have to say it first, even if you’re being all insecure about it,” John B said. “You’re being kind of a bitch.”

“Fuck _you_ , John B.” She shoved at him, ducking and wrestling out of his arms. “Don’t you _ever_ use that word at me.”

He stretched his arms out. “See? Words matter. You say they don’t, but they do. I could have called you a dick, a fuckface, even a smelly-footed beer stealer, and you wouldn’t have cared. But call you a Kook, or a bitch, and it’s on. So what makes you think words don’t matter to JJ, huh? It’s not like his family ever—”

“Don’t.” She pointed at him. “That’s low, and you know that’s not on me. I shouldn’t have to say I love you to anybody before I’m ready, no matter what his family did or didn’t do for him.”

“Sure,” John B said. “Except we both know it’s not that you’re not ready. You’re just butt-hurt because he didn’t say it first. You think I wouldn’t have liked it better if Sarah said it first, instead of my dumb ass blurting it out to her on a porch in front of all y’all?”

That almost cheered her up, the memory of John B’s dopy grin and super cheesy declaration of how _love walked in._ She bit back her smile and looked away. “Okay, call me a bitch if you want, but at least _I_ didn’t go all Lifetime Network on him.”

“It thought was more Hallmark…” He sniffed primly.

She choked on a laugh, rolling her eyes. “Okay, Shakespeare. I give, clearly you’re the Pogue expert on giving love advice after that whole shit show.”

They both laughed at that, but when she reached for her door handle, figuring that signaled a truce on the topic, he stopped her with a touch to her shoulder.

She cringed, but he just waited until she reluctantly met his eyes. “Kie. You know what I’m saying here, and you fucking _know_ why I’m saying it. If you don’t love JJ, you shouldn’t tell him you do. You should leave.”

He took a long, low breath and said the rest before she could even escape into her car.

“Because you’re _not_ any other girl—you can break his heart so bad no one else will be able to fix him. Not even Pope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Low on editing time lately, so a short chapter today, folks. More soon!


	21. What a Girl Needs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: TIMELINE CHANGE- I know I said these guys got together at Spring Break, but to do what I need to do, I'm going to have to bump it earlier in the school year. I went back and changed the references in earlier chapters, but just adjust your mental timeline. This is one of the problems with posting as I write instead of writing and editing a whole piece before I share. Thanks for your patience and flexibility!
> 
> And now, please enjoy. Just like Kie, all of you deserve something nice on your Saturday, to make you feel warm and happy and content. <3

It wasn't until three days after John B's guilt trip to Kiara that they were all together again. Sarah was cooking dinner. Well, giggling mostly, while John B tried to dance with her in the tiny kitchen of her new apartment. It was just semi-homemade pizza anyway, with crust popped out of the Pillsbury can, unevenly-piled ingredients, and heaps of cheese they made JJ grate, even though he ate about half of it by the handful before it ever made it to the pizza. Pope was busy googling what temperature to actually bake the bastardized, lumpy thing at, and Kie was busy feeling like shit.

John B tried to offer her an olive, but she smacked his hand away and glared daggers. He raised an eyebrow, looked pointedly to JJ and then back to her, and she scowled harder. He knew good and well she hadn't said those three little words yet, and there was no reason to ask except to rub it in.

JJ was still gobbling cheese and didn't seem affected, so Kie blurted out some excuse of wanting to skip the inevitable food poisoning and left before dinner even went into the oven.

She drove home, the windows of her car open and cold air rushing in from the dark as she sped away from the golden windows of the apartment filled with her friends.

Her stomach was tumbling all over itself, just like it had been for the last three days, and she didn't know how to make it stop. It wasn't as simple as John B had made it sound. She had feelings for JJ, a whole mixed-up lot of them. But he wasn't the only one on the edge of getting their heart broken hard enough it wouldn't ever be the same.

She was still awake at 2 am that night when JJ tumbled in her window.

"Jesus Christ, are you _trying_ to get my dad to shoot you?!" she hissed, shoving at his shoulder when he slipped under the covers.

"Been sneaking in Pope's window for years, and if anybody on this island was going to be fast enough to get a bullet in me, it'd be Heyward." JJ smirked. "Especially if he knew the things we've been doing to his son."

She turned on her side, facing the wall instead of him. "It's late, JJ. I was sleeping."

"No, you weren't. Your voice gets all croaky like a cartoon frog when you've been sleeping."

He bustled her right back over to face him, her protesting feet kicking the covers into a froth.

"Why'd you go home?" he persisted. "You never go home when there's pizza, not even when Sarah puts weird pickled vegetables on it. And Pope made sure she didn't burn it or anything."

"I'm tired, jeez, do I have to spend every minute with you guys or face the Spanish Inquisition?" She rolled over again, pulling her knees up to her chest.

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition," JJ said in a wretched British accent, but when she didn't laugh at the reference, he tugged at the waistband of her pajama shorts. "Are you mad at Pope? If you are, you can tell him. Or tell me, and I'll tell him. I know it's really hard to tell Pope you're mad at him because you feel like you kicked a puppy when his face all falls and everything, but sometimes you get mad at people anyway even if you don't want to, and he _does_ get over it." He paused. "He's actually really good at getting over it, because whatever pissed you off, he remembers it for fucking ever, like an elephant. And then he gets all twitchy and worry-eyed if he even gets near to doing it again."

She shoved her face in her pillow. "I'm not mad at Pope. Go home, JJ."

For a long moment, he didn't say anything. "Kie, are we…good?" he finally asked.

She shoved her face harder into her pillow, squeezing her burning eyes closed as the tears seeped into the cotton until it was wet against her face. "Mmm-hm," she managed. This time she must have sounded enough like a cartoon frog to convince him that she was really tired, because he left.

He didn't close the window after himself, and even in late spring, the air felt dead-cold when it gusted in against her back.

#

She cried until three in the morning. Stared at her ceiling, hating herself, until four. Texted Pope for advice, but of course he put his phone on airplane mode before he went to bed, like a responsible human.

At five, she snuck out.

The window on the bedroom at the Chateau was low enough to the ground that it felt like cheating after he'd climbed to the second floor for her, but she did it anyway, because she had to do _some_ kind of a gesture.

JJ jerked awake with a gasp when she shoved up the window, so she had to do the undignified jump-up-and-wiggle-through with an audience, and didn't get the smooth slide-under-the-sheets moment until afterward. But it was worth it when she saw the slice of his crooked smile in the moonlight.

"You sneaking into bed with me, beautiful?"

"Full disclosure, I spooned John B first. I thought he'd be in his room and you'd be on the pull out."

"It's whoever goes to sleep first gets the bedroom," JJ said, snuggling her up into his side. "That way, if the other person is making out or gaming or whatever, you don't keep 'em up. You could have come in through the actual door, if you were already in the living room."

"I was trying to be—just shut up. Anyway."

"Does this mean you're not mad at me anymore?"

Her chest ached and she tried to sort out how to answer that question.

"I'm not stupid," he said. "I know something's up this week. Pope says you won't tell him either, and John B looks guilty, and Sarah said if you're upset maybe I should learn how to communicate, which was why I tried the window thing, except then you kicked me the hell out."

The moonlight was still too bright. When she'd imagined this moment, it'd been dark and he couldn't see her face. She squeezed her eyes closed, his agile fingers oddly still against her back, like he wanted to stroke her spine but wasn't sure if he was allowed, at the moment.

"I think I wanted you to pick me," she whispered. "And I know that's not fair, and it doesn't even really make sense. I wouldn't want you not to be with Pope, and I wouldn't want _us_ not to have Pope. I don't know what I wanted, I just…" The air hissed out of her, frustrated. "But that's not how love works. You don't give only if you get to take, or trade it around like a favor. It's not money, it's not zero sum or transactional, it's…"

Into the silence, his voice sounded very deep, even with the teasing note lifting it that told her, even with her eyes closed, that he was smiling. "Is this you saying you're in love with me, Carrera? Sneaking in my window in the middle of the night and all."

She hesitated, not sure what she wanted to say or how she wanted to say it. Aching, because even now, even _knowing_ she needed to be the brave one, she was scared breathless.

"You're right, though, love's not like that," JJ said after a moment. "It kind of just bursts out of you when you least expect it, whether you say the words or not. And once it's out, you can't put it back in. Like an alien baby."

She started laughing. "What an image. Jeez, JJ."

His finger touched her chin, trying to tilt it up. "Is all this because you think I don't love you?"

She froze. Before she could find the courage to look at him, to see if he was saying what she thought he was saying, the door creaked open and John B stuck his head in. "What are you two laughing at?"

"Your face," JJ said instantly.

John B launched for the bed, scuffling with both of them until they all ended up in a pile of twisted sheets, too tired to wrestle anymore. He yawned from where his head had ended up in Kie's lap, his feet on the only remaining pillow. "Wait, was this a booty call?"

"If it was," Kie said, "Your dumbass ruined it." She wriggled around until her head found a part of JJ's body to rest on.

"S'rry. I can go," John B mumbled, and then promptly fell asleep on her leg. JJ tugged the pillow out from under John B's feet and stuffed it under his head. She was afraid to look at him, now that he knew she loved him.

He hadn't said it back. But then, she hadn't really said it out loud, either. Were they okay, now? Was this it—their big moment?

She lay there, her eyes closed but poised in every cell for what JJ might say next, until he twitched under her head and she realized he was already asleep.

#

Kie had forgotten to close the window after she climbed in last night, so she was woken at dawn by the mosquitos. She blew one off her nose with soft huff of air and peeked over at the guys. JJ was asleep with one arm flung high over his head, his lips soft and unguarded and his hair a gorgeous wreck. Her heart gave an uneven, oversized thump.

It was one of the great mysteries of JJ, how he only seemed to look better the more you messed up his hair. John B, in contrast, currently looked like if a raccoon and an angora cat had a baby…and then it died on his head. He'd also drooled right on the crotch of her yoga pants. She winced and pushed at his face. He rolled over, his head on one of JJ's arms now, and fell back to sleep.

A lump rose in her throat, watching them. _I think I wanted you to pick me._ Why had she said that? It was such an asshole thing to say, especially when it was about being chosen before _Pope_ , and there was no chance at all for their throuple if she was going to have these ridiculous, immature jealous moments.

Plus, it was Saturday, so not only would she have to face JJ after everything she'd admitted last night, but Pope would probably come over, too. Maybe if it was busy enough at the Wreck, she could volunteer for a shift even if she wasn't on the schedule. She slipped out of bed as quietly as she could, and when she heard JJ stirring—he was the lightest sleeper of them all—she didn't look back.

#

Normally, the best part about working at the Wreck was that it was too busy for her to think. But today, no matter how many orders piled up or how many hot plates she balanced up her arm, she kept hearing his words.

_Is this all because you think I don't love you?_

The sentence burned into her like a jellyfish sting. Because why would he say it, outright like that and so cruel, unless he was going to tell her she was wrong and he loved her after all. But he _hadn't_. And yeah, John B had interrupted, but John B interrupted everything and it never slowed JJ down before. She couldn't even talk this out with her friends because John B hadn't listened to her when she tried to tell him what she really thought. That JJ wanted her but loved Pope, and he was perfectly happy to get both…but he also wasn't going to lie to her face about how he felt.

It's why she hadn't said it to him, because that forced the issue. He would either have to say it back…or not. JJ lied all the fucking time, but he wasn't a _liar_. Not like that.

"Excuse me, I ordered the clams."

She smiled back at the man who was speaking. "Mm-hmm?"

The customer looked at her like she was a dolt. "Do these look like clams to you?"

She obediently looked down to his plate, which held three tiny cups of tartar sauce and a sprig of parsley. _Fuck._

"Your dinner will be on the house, sir," she said, and swept the plate away.

She let one of the other employees go home early and stayed all the way to closing, ignoring every bleep of her phone from the various members of the Pogues, who were presumably having a hell of a Saturday without her. She even sent her dad home and mopped without him, pushing until her muscles burned. It felt like the only appropriate accompaniment to the toxic mixture of hurt and guilt that no amount of exhaustion seemed able to wash out of her system.

But when she finally pushed out the back door at midnight, exhausted and sweaty, he was right there. She blinked, as if her overactive imagination might have gone 3-D, but nope, there JJ was. With the sides torn out of his tee shirt and wearing his threadbare blue Outer Banks hat that had "Come on vacation, leave on probation" embroidered on it.

He gave her one of his tight smiles. "Thought you could dodge me, didn't you?"

"I had to work." She tried for a casual smile, so this wouldn't turn into a whole thing. "Not even dating two months yet and you're already getting clingy?"

"Not even dating two months yet, and you're already sneaking out before I wake up so we don't have to talk?"

"JJ…" Okay, so they were definitely doing this right now.

Her eyes swept the parking lot, trying to gauge how much of an audience they were about to have, but she didn't see the VW bus, or his dirt bike, or even Pope's dad's truck. There was just her SUV, and a lonely bicycle locked to the fence that somebody had apparently forgotten when they caught a ride home from the beach.

"Wait, how did you get here?"

"Doesn't matter." He caught her by the hips and boosted her up onto the metal railing of the wheelchair ramp. She sucked in a breath, caught off guard by the movement and having to reach to steady herself on the narrow railing. Before she could catch her balance again, he had already ducked his head and nailed her with his eyes. Direct and a blue so alive she'd never seen the exact shade anywhere else.

Her exhausted pulse thrilled to life at the sight of him. God, he was beautiful, that model-sharp face under that tattered old hat with its wrap of peeling electrical tape around the snap back. Like a Rembrandt hidden in a garage that you just knew somebody was going to show up and take, because it couldn't really belong to you.

"Kie." He thumbed a strand of hair away from her face. "Look, I know you think I love Pope more."

Her whole body felt suddenly shatterable, hearing him say those words out loud. Her face snapped closed and she gripped the bar to either side of her to jump down, but he hadn't even paused and he was still speaking.

"But the thing you don't understand is, Pope always _let_ me love him. Way before he let me kiss him. You never really did. And things are better now, different. But that still fucks me up sometimes."

Her eyes went wide. "JJ, I never meant to—"

"Because yeah, I love you." His voice was smaller, rougher than usual. His hands gripped the bar to either side of her until it squeaked with the pressure of skin against metal. "I've always fucking loved you. It just never made a difference."

She couldn't think. Not with him this raw, standing right there in front of her and still somehow looking her in the eye through all of it. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen JJ let his guard down this far, not even that horrible night in the hot tub when he just _broke_.

"But you—if you—" Her voice cracked and then it was just pouring out of her, his hurt mixing with hers until she couldn't hold it in anymore, just couldn't. "Why didn't you _do_ anything about it? All those years. You teased, and you flirted, but you never kissed me. Never acted like you were serious, not once, but it's like you didn't even have to think twice before you kissed _Pope_."

His brows snapped down and his head reared back. "Are you serious? After the billion times you paused the movie after a grab-and-kiss scene to rant about consent?"

"Forgive me if I don't want my friends to be date rapists just because Hollywood is modeling poor behavior rebranded as romance that's written by a bunch of entitled monsters who—"

"I _told_ you," he interrupted. "I told you I loved you like a thousand fucking times and you laughed at me like I was a joke."

What was he even talking about? "Do you mean back in junior high?" She scoffed. "Probably because you _were_ joking, JJ. Come on, writing it in the sand on the beach, sending me snarky little Valentine's cards on those stupid roses everybody buys each other, dropping to one knee in front of all the Pogues? You were just trying to get a rise out of me."

"Or I was telling the truth."

She shook her head. "Oh no, you don't get to retcon your old clowning around to make me look like the asshole now. You never did it when we were alone, or in a nice way. It was always in the middle of messing around on the boat or surfing with the guys."

"John B told Sarah he loved her in front of the Pogues and _she_ believed him."

"JJ!" she squeaked, outraged, but he was pouting now and she could tell by his fidgeting feet and the inward curl of his shoulders that he did, bizarrely, actually mean it. "JJ…" She caught his arm, her hand soft. "I had no idea you were serious."

"You never do." His jaw flexed but he wasn't meeting her eyes anymore. "Somehow you think I'm capable of being in love with Pope, but not you. You think you can clown around with me and hug me and kiss me and even fuck me and somehow it's not gonna hurt that you tell Pope you love him right in front of me. Because I'm your good buddy JJ and I never take anything seriously."

He looked up, his jaw clenched so tight it was quivering and his eyes went straight through her. He seemed about ten years older all in one breath and maybe it was just the light behind him but every faint scar on his face was suddenly standing out like they were fresh wounds.

"But guess what, Kie? I'm serious about _you_. You have never had any idea how serious."

He shoved his hand into his pocket and came out with a square, velvet box.

Her eyes popped. "JJ, holy—"

Her heart leapt, then flipped all the way over. Oh God, of course he would take her insecurity and run with it…and go completely overboard in the other direction. He gripped the box, swallowing, and she utterly melted. How could she tell him, now, that she wasn't ready to get married, that it was way too early?

And also, at the same time, that she didn't realize until she saw the ring box how anything less somehow wouldn't have been enough to coax the knots out of her stomach.

Because the doubts were gone. Just like that, replaced with a certainty so solid it seemed to stretch larger with every breath. JJ Maybank loved her. And yes, seeing him standing in front of her now, it was like now she could remember all the younger versions of him with too-short outgrown jeans and eyes too big for his skinny face, all of those versions loving her, too. For all those years.

He flipped the box open and the first thing she saw was silver. It was a spun web of silver strands atop a ring, shaped to resemble a whorl of driftwood with a tiny, rainbow-shining piece of abalone shell in the center. It was chipped, and a little oddly shaped to be the center of a ring, but somehow the asymmetrical setting suited it. Made it art, not accident.

But then deja vu tugged at her and she reached to touch the abalone shell. "Wait, is that…"

"You flicked that shell at me in the fifth grade," he said. "Told me to leave you alone because I was annoying. I did a flip off the monkey bars and cracked a tooth that day trying to get your attention. And yeah." He gave her a sheepish, crooked smile. "I kept it."

"Are you sure it was _fifth_ grade?" He and John B hadn't started hanging out with Pope until sixth.

He met her eyes. "Fifth."

She couldn't swallow. She didn't know what to say, couldn't tell him what this meant to her. More than a wedding ring, somehow, because it wasn't just _I love you now_. It was _I've always loved you_. It was proof.

"But…" A tear slipped down her cheek and she swiped at it, trying to focus on details so she wouldn't fall apart in front of him. "It's Saturday. How could you have gotten our old shell put in a ring in one day on a weekend?"

"Oh, easy." He shrugged, a little of his old cocky confidence coming back into his eyes as he grinned. "Got it made at a jewelry shop in the mall on the mainland. I refused to leave until she finished. Told her it was for my mom who has Alzheimer's, and today was one of her good days. That if she didn't get it today, she might never have another good day again when she'd know the present was from me, or even that I was her son."

"Alzheimer's." She shook her head. "But that must have cost…" She gasped. "JJ Maybank, is this your whole bonus from finally fixing McReedus's Suncruiser engine?"

"No, actually." He scowled. "That went straight into property taxes. Did you know about property taxes, Kie? It's like rent you have to pay on a house you already fucking own! Turns out John B had been getting letters from the state for like months, saying they were going to take it, and he just kept sending them whatever chump change he had, like that'd stop them foreclosing. Could have lost the whole damn Chateau if I hadn't checked the mail for him last week."

"So then how…" Her eyes fell on the bicycle. The only thing in the lot that could have brought him here. "You sold your dirt bike. Oh my God, JJ…" She was already reaching to shut the box, because no way would she take his only source of transportation from him when he had so little to call his own.

He pulled it out of her reach before she could. "Don't even. Bike's perfect. I'll get more exercise and don't have to waste money on gas. Plus, it's not like we don't both know Pope's dad is gonna give him the truck for graduation. Heyward's always driving the new shop truck now as it is. And don't act like you don't know that when Pope leaves for college, he's gonna leave me the truck because he won't be able to afford parking at Stanford." JJ grinned. "So basically, it's just for the summer. I'll trade him the bike so he can get around campus, and I'll be riding in style by the time the cold blows in."

Kie couldn't help but laugh. "You've already got this all worked out."

"Damn straight." He pulled the ring out and dropped the pretty velvet box like it was trash. "Had to buy my girl a ring." He picked up her hand and slid the ring on, her heart thumping madly at the intimacy of having a man do that for her. It echoed in her head, like a ripple effect of a memory she didn't yet have.

Left hand, middle finger, and it fit like he'd sized it just for that spot. Close enough to touch her ring finger, but not quite there, as if it was saving his place. He met her eyes and she knew. That he'd done it on purpose, and that she was going to let him.

"It's perfect." She could barely breathe, she was smiling so hard. "How did you know?"

He was fidgeting, tugging at the round wooden beads of his rosary bracelet. He shrugged. "I know that for girls, you can tell them how you feel, but sometimes they like jewelry better. It's a thing you can take with you everywhere, look at to remind you that no matter what, it's real. That somebody gives a shit about you."

She caught him by the wrist, her hand closing over the bracelet she'd made him so long ago. She hadn't been sure, at the time, that he understood why she'd made it. But it was nice to know the message had been received, loud and clear. She parted her knees so she could tug him closer, her hand coming up to cup his face.

"I love you, JJ." The words came out so easily now, like he'd given her a spell of safety instead of a ring, but they still ached in her throat with how big they felt. But of course he had known exactly how to make loving him feel safe. JJ, who had probably never felt all the way safe for an entire day in his whole life.

She tipped her forehead against his, trying to catch her breath. Under her fingertips, his heartbeat raced.

"I didn't want to be in love with you if you weren't in love with me," she confessed all in a rush.

"I know." He laughed, a little dark, a little ragged. "Holy fuck do I understand that."

Her fingers tightened. "But you're never going to have to worry about that ever again." She kissed him, all the pain of the last few days disappearing against the soft urgency of his kiss, how he responded to her without thinking, without ever holding back. "Between me and Pope, we're going to love you so much you're barely going to be able to stand it."

She felt his expression change against her lips, his dimple deepening as he started to smile, and she kissed his cheek again before pulling back just so she could see his grin. "Sounds like the worst," he deadpanned.

"Man up, Maybank." She hopped off the railing and caught his hand, the silver of his rings clicking against hers when she squeezed. "You're just going to have to get used to it, because you're stuck with us now. Both of us. For good."


	22. JJ's Dad Strikes Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Just as a disclaimer, I wrote this chapter out of order, way way back before this year’s Black Lives Matter protests or the current riots in Portland. The characters’ dialogue about a movie seems even more controversial and poignant now than it did when I wrote it. I considered taking it out because that’s a topic that’s more complex and again, controversial, than I can do justice to in one conversation in a fanfic. However, in the end I left it because the characters all have different perspectives on it, and while neither I nor they have answers to the problem, I think it’s a question worth considering from a few different angles. Clearly, it’s one that is only becoming more relevant in our country today.

**Chapter 22: JJ’s Dad Strikes Back**

It had been a quiet few days since Kie and JJ’s big fight. Quiet, and sweet. Oddly, Pope seemed more relaxed, smiling more, and Kie felt steadier in a way that her feminist self definitely did _not_ want to admit had anything to do with the little silver ring on her finger. JJ, on the other hand, was bursting full of energy, grins, and mischief. It was him who declared, with a pocket full of cash from his latest boat renovation gig, that he wanted to take them out for a date—or as much of a date as you could have when you were a closeted throuple on an island. Which meant movies because they happened in the dark and the three of them couldn’t be seen. Kie didn’t care for that particular metaphor, but even so, it was a little nice, going somewhere like any other couple.

Until Kie made the mistake of letting JJ pick the movie.

The car was bombshell silent for three full minutes after Kie pulled away from Kildare Island’s tiny movie theater, then Pope’s breathed, “Dude…” broke the detente.

“That scene when he was standing up on the car, everything on fire, dancing…” JJ shook his head, his agile fingers playing along the edge of the Xterra’s passenger window, the scent of movie theatre popcorn still clinging to his tee shirt. “You could like _see_ the moment he became the Joker.”

“Chaos,” Pope said. “That was some crazy shit.”

“But that’s the whole problem with it,” Kie argued, flipping on her headlights as the twilight got heavier. “The whole narrative there is that violence is the answer. That the Joker won through inciting anarchy and hurting other people. That they made him an icon for it. It’s kind of sick.”

“Yeah, he finally fucking won, Kie,” JJ said. “That’s the point. Everybody was always fucking him over, kicking him when he was down, never giving him a break no matter how quiet and goddamn nice he was, and _finally_ , he was the one who came out on top. He was the one who won.” JJ closed one eye and aimed a pistol made of his fingers out the front window, mouthing the _bang_. “One fucking shot at the right person is all you need to take back what’s yours.”

“Or start World War I,” Pope said. “I don’t know, man. All those riots, burning buildings. They’re protesting rich people but it’s people like us that have to rebuild when the windows get broken. Turn out our pockets because we don’t have the insurance to cover it.”

“So what, people like us are just supposed to not get angry? We’re supposed to lay down and take all this bullshit because even when we protest, we get fucked harder than those rich assholes behind their big gates?” JJ shook his head. “Nah, man. Sometimes you gotta stand up for what’s right, no matter what it costs you.”

“Do you think they should have made that movie, Pope?” Kie lifted her head to see him in the rearview mirror. “Made him a hero and all that?”

“I don’t think they were saying The Joker was a hero,” Pope said slowly. “More like he was a lit match, when everything was already ready to bur—”

“Whoa, slow down.” JJ’s hand whipped out to brace against the dashboard and Kie tapped the brakes.

“That’s not very on brand for JJ Maybank,” she teased. “Come on, I was only going seven over the speed limit. You getting timid in your old—” She broke off when she spotted the commotion outside the bar.

There was shouting as a man in a white wife-beater tank top backed out the door of The Anchor, his hands held up but his mouth still hurling epithets. Maude, the whip-thin, frizzy-braided woman who’d been a bartender at The Anchor since Kie was in preschool, followed him out, holding a cut-off bat of the type used to club large fish to death on a boat.

“Luke,” she said. “You go on home now and I’ll let you come back tomorrow. Otherwise, you ain’t getting served until next week, the way you’re going.”

The sharp tattoos on her toned arms shone even in the dim parking lot lights. The Anchor wasn’t big enough to have a bouncer, so Maude was it. When Luke Maybank lunged at Maude, Kie swerved reflexively, slamming on the brakes like she was the one under attack.

“Go!” Pope yelped from the backseat. “Go, go go!”

“Stop,” JJ said at the same moment, reaching for the door handle.

Kie threw an arm out across him. “JJ! What are you doing?”

“Let me out,” he said without taking his eyes off the fight in the parking lot. One of the regulars that Kie recognized from the docks was hanging off Luke’s arm now, trying to talk to him. “He’s bad today, I can tell. He’s too big for her to take.”

“She has a bat,” Pope said, “And Maude throws him out of that bar like twice a week, JJ. She can call the cops if she needs help, or she’s got a whole parking lot full of regulars who’d be happy to back her up for a free beer. There is absolutely no reason why we need to—Dammit, JJ!”

Pope broke off as JJ grabbed the door handle. Kie let him go long enough to slap the door locks, steering off the road when she heard the blare of a horn behind her.

“You are not going out there, JJ Maybank!” she snapped, slapping the lock button again when he pulled up the lock on his door. But then Luke broke free of the guy holding him and charged Maude, wrestling her for the bat in her hand.

“I practically own this bar,” Luke howled, “much of my hard-earned money as I’ve given you over the years. You think you can just throw me out of here because you think I’m too drunk? It’s a bar, you fucking cunt, not a church! The fuck do you think it’s _for_?”

Kie was a second late hitting the lock button, distracted by the shouting, and JJ was out of the SUV and darting around the hood. She lunged out of the car after him, jumping onto his back and locking her arms and legs around him.

“You want to get in the middle of that fight?” she challenged. “Then you’re taking me with you.”

JJ dropped one shoulder, throwing her weight off balance so she slid to the side. He got an arm around her waist and slung her the rest of the way so he was holding her in front of him. It was a quick movement, one of his dirty little tricks honed from a million tussles on the boat about who was going to throw who in the ocean. Kie swore as he started to carry her back toward the car. She should have remembered that JJ never fought fair, not really ever. Didn’t see the point, when he could win instead.

He stuffed her into the driver’s seat, Pope shouting at both of them from the backseat. She fought back with everything she had, cramming her feet against the edge of the door to try to burst back out. JJ pried her off him so quickly and easily that surprise bolted up into her throat. It was suddenly brutally clear how much he held back his real strength during all their horseplay.

“Dammit, Luke!” Maude’s voice howled over all the commotion.

JJ started to back out of the car, his head bumping the doorframe on his way out. Kie jumped at him, clawing to get purchase on his shirt, his belt, anything she could reach.

“You are not going out there,” she hissed, “so help me God he is not going to get his fucking hands—oof!” Her breath whooshed out of her as JJ jumped forward across her lap. At first, she thought he was using his weight to pin her in, but then she realized he was rummaging in his backpack on the floor of the passenger seat. “Pope!” she yelped, because oh no it could be a gun JJ was going for.

Pope lunged up between the seats, reaching for JJ, but he was already pulling away and all Kie saw was pink fuzz and then something hard encircled her wrist. There was a click and then JJ was gone, his hat falling off in her lap as he jogged off toward his father. She threw the hat aside and went after him, pain shooting up her arm as she came up short.

“What the fuck?”

Pink, fuzzy handcuffs shackled her to the steering wheel. She pulled, stunned, but beneath the padded, feathered covering, they were solid metal.

“Oh no,” Pope said, then swallowed. “I’ll get him.” He reached, shaking, for the door handle and Kie threw an arm back, batting him away from the door.

“No!” she ordered. “Not you, too. You can _not_ get arrested. Shit. Fuck.”

She tried to think but a crash jerked her head toward the bar. The sound had been a scrawny guy in oil-stained overalls, hitting the side of a parked car. Luke turned to Maude, who was missing the bat and was now snarling in his face, her own twisted with rage as she cussed him out. He shoved her. She stumbled and shoved him right back and he cocked a fist. JJ ducked between them, but didn’t catch his dad’s fist in time, and got an elbow to the face when he ended up somewhere in the messy middle of the punch.

“JJ!” Kie gasped and the back of her seat creaked as Pope latched onto it.

But JJ rebounded back up like a spring snapping. That wiry body of his just didn’t have any quit in him, never had. Except even from here, Kie could see how much heavier his dad’s body was, how much thicker were his layers of muscle. JJ was taller by an inch, these days, but outweighed by fifty or sixty pounds of pure mean.

Maude grabbed JJ’s shoulder and tried to pull him away, but he was crowding his dad away from her, his head tucked low as he talked fast.

Luke exploded, coming at him in a fury of punches so fast and brutal Kie couldn’t even sort out what was happening. Pope yelped, a sharp animal sound of pain that in the chaos of her thoughts seemed somehow like it was coming straight from JJ. Tears blurred her vision and so it was a second late before she registered the back door coming open.

“Pope, no!”

He came out of the car in a rush of hard purpose, his path as quiet and directed as a weapon.

JJ went down, too-long hair flying as his head bounced off the pavement. His father leaned into him but Pope was there then, stepping over JJ and powering his fist into Luke’s face.

Luke staggered back and Pope was still going after him, his movements silent and hard, like he was a figure from a different movie than the loud, frenzied one that had been playing thus far in the parking lot. Pope threw a left this time, his whole back swinging into the punch with enough momentum to flatten Luke all the way to the pavement.

Pope went still then, for only a fraction of a second that made it so clear how much faster his brain was moving than the rest of the spectators. When Luke did nothing in response but bleed, Pope turned away toward JJ, who was already climbing back up onto his feet.

“Po—” he yelled, but his father had already caught their boyfriend by the back of his shirt, spinning him around and smashing him in the jaw with a sloppy but brutal haymaker. Pope staggered, falling half onto JJ.

JJ stumbled but kept his feet, grabbing at Pope to try and haul him back up. “Run,” Kie heard him order. “Fucking _run_ , dammit!”

Luke barreled into both of them as they were in the hot midst of scrambling back to their feet and they hit the asphalt in a tangle of arms and legs, skidding. Kie flinched back into the seat, her hands curling tight with the sympathy pain of knowing how much skin and blood they just left on the pavement.

Before they could regather themselves, Luke hauled back one meaty leg and booted them. She couldn’t even see if he’d hit JJ or Pope, and then he did it again and a cry of pain stabbed itself through the air and buried itself right between her ribs.

“STOP IT!” Kie exploded out of the car, her shoulder wrenching painfully as she threw her whole body weight against the cuff. Rubber squeaked as her tires turned on the pavement, the steering wheel twisting with her but refusing to let her free. “Somebody _do_ something, make him stop!”

One of the fishermen dodged in and Luke threw him back, leaving him on his ass. There was no pause in the attack for them to run or even roll away. But JJ was fast, faster than anyone she’d ever known, and he had one breath while Luke pulled his leg back to do something.

He grabbed Pope and curled his whole body over him. His legs coming up behind Pope’s, his arms covering his boyfriend’s. His chin tucking into the rear of Pope’s neck so JJ’s head protected his. It was the way he held him in bed, when all was quiet and silent and safe.

When the world was nothing like it was now.

“No!” Kie screamed as Luke started kicking them, falling half to her knees with her arm twisted painfully up behind her. Her sobs choked her screams and through the gush of her tears she saw Maude dodge in and wrestle with Luke. He tried to throw her off, but she stuck like a burr and his next kick was thrown off balance enough that it didn’t land on JJ’s already shuddering back.

 _Police._ The single thought needled its way through the shriek of panic and hatred in Kie’s mind. She threw herself back into the car, banging her shoulder. Pain burned around her trapped wrist as she fumbled with her left hand in the cupholder for her purse.

“I’m calling the fucking police!” she screamed as loud as she could. “You better get out of here before they come.” She dropped the phone halfway through dialing 911, hit 912 on her second try, then saw the gleaming “emergency” prompt in the lower left corner and thumbed that. She popped her head back up as it rang.

Maude was still clinging to Luke’s arms, clawing and head-butting the hell out of him while all the rest of the fisherman seethed uneasily behind her, looking too scared to jump in. Luke got in another uneven kick at his son and Kie’s whole body jolted with JJ’s when it landed.

“Leave them ALONE!” she screamed, her sobs jolting up out of her throat as unstoppable as vomit.

“—nature of your emergency,” she heard a voice say in her ear.

“Fight, assault, The Anchor,” she spit out, then realized that didn’t sound like anything. The cops were going to finish their donut before they even started the engine for yet another bar fight at the diviest dive bar in the Cut. “A gun,” she shrieked. “Luke Maybank has a gun and he’s going to kill us all!”

“Cops!” someone yelled. “She’s calling the cops!” Bar patrons started to scatter.

“Topper!” Kie added. “Topper, get away from him, that gun’s loaded!” Topper had the most litigious family in the Figure 8 and the police damn well knew it. A mistake made with that family was a mistake that haunted you forever.

Maude let go of Luke, backing up. “Cops,” she said. “Cops what you want tonight, Luke?”

He rushed her, trying to get back to JJ and Pope, but JJ was already scrambling up, shoving Pope in front of him. He was moving unevenly and he fell hard to one knee, favoring his left side. The phone fell from Kie’s trembling fingers as she sucked in a breath, tears wet on her face. Pope turned and hauled JJ up, running with his arm locked around the other man’s back as he rushed him toward the car and threw him into the passenger side, slamming the door.

“Go!” Pope yelled before he even got the back door open for himself. “Go go go!”

Kie reached for the shifter and hit the end of her handcuff. Then realized the door was open and got all tangled up trying to reach for it with her left hand, then across to the shifter to pull it into drive, choking on blinding tears and barely able to breathe.

“Let me drive.” Pope lunged up between the seats, his voice that single-minded, murderous focus that he had been transmitting since he went after Luke. He started to pick up Kie to move her bodily into the back seat, and then seemed to remember the handcuff. “JJ, we need the key. JJ, the key.”

JJ reached over, then jerked to a stop with a hissing breath of pain. Guarding his left side with his bent arm, he reached across with his right instead, and flicked his thumb over the inside of the cuff. It fell free, released by some kind of safety catch button that had been hidden in all that pink fluff. Kie stared at him, annoyed beyond all reason that the way out had been there all along and she hadn’t even seen it.

Pope started to lift her, not waiting for her to recover, and she grabbed the steering wheel. “No.” she practically snarled it, unwilling to have one more goddamn thing happen tonight against her will. Not even one. “I’ve got this.”

She hadn’t been allowed to fight, she hadn’t even gotten one shot at Luke Maybank. She hadn’t been able to protect the boys she loved, but she could at least get them safely away.

She jerked it in gear and looked up. Men were scattering toward the edges of the parking lot, headlights popping on as the sirens got closer. Maude stood with her arms crossed, looking pissed off and immovable like it was just another Tuesday. Kie’s gaze zeroed in on a flash of wife beater tank top just beyond Maude and her lashes flared. Her foot hit the gas.

“Kie, the road is—Kie!” Pope yelled from the backseat.

Luke ducked between two cars, cranking it up to a jog as he made his way toward the woods and she hit the brakes, grinding her teeth as she swung the wheel back toward the road instead.

“We should really put on our seatbelts,” Pope suggested, his voice climbing now toward his normal freaked-out pitch. “Kie, whoa, those are police officers, slow down.”

Her body was responding too slow to her commands, moving in angry jerks and spasms like she was the one who had taken a beating. She didn’t know if she wanted to throw up or scream her lungs out and her left eye was still clogged with tears so she couldn’t see through it yet. The yellow line disappeared under her tires and she sucked in a breath. Fuck, she had to get it together. For them.

She sucked in a breath, tapped the brakes. Her phone slid across the floormat but she ignored it. Wiped her eyes and buckled on her seatbelt.

“JJ, are you—” she began.

But Pope was already up between the seats, trying to prod at the arm JJ had gingerly tucked into his side.

“Don’t touch me,” he snapped, jerking away from Pope’s hands.

“I just…is it broken? Do we need to go to the hospital?”

“No.”

Silence beat in the car for a second, two.

“JJ, I felt it when—I felt how hard he kicked you. You could have internal bleeding. You—”

“Your face is swelling.” JJ had turned, still not wearing a seat belt as he gripped Pope’s chin with his good right hand. “Dammit, Pope, where else did he hit you?”

“Nowhere,” Pope said. “JJ, I’m fine, it’s you—”

“Can you wiggle your jaw? Do it like this, to see if it’s broken at the hinge.” JJ made a strange movement that looked like he’d done it before. Kie hugged her arm over her stomach as she took the dark, almost invisible turn between the bushes for the driveway to the Chateau.

The lights weren’t on because John B was always at Sarah’s place these days. Kie parked and reached for JJ, but he was already out of the car. As the dome light came on, she caught the smudge of a dark, waffle-print boot sole on the back of his sleeveless Coors shirt. JJ ripped Pope’s door open and caught him by the wrists, checking his hands, then pulling him toward the house.

Pope threw a helpless glance her way, pulled along in JJ’s wake. She grabbed her phone and hurried after them, but by the time she made it to the front door, they were already past and into the kitchen. JJ was slamming through drawers. “Damn it, why don’t we have a clean towel in this place? Fucking John B never does laundry.” Blood dripped from his face and Kie’s heart twisted.

“JJ, you’re bleeding.” She reached for him again but he shoved past her hands, leaving her skin stinging as he stomped past her to the bathroom.

“No fucking towels in here either, goddamn it.” He came back and she scurried out of his path before he could plow right through her. Her sandal slipped on a drip of blood on the floor and a larger, thicker blop of blood hit the floor when he slammed open the freezer. He grabbed the only thing in it, which was a bag of cauliflower—which they all hated, even Kie. For the first time, the violence of his movements eased as he turned back to Pope.

“Don’t you ever,” he said, the low viciousness of his voice at odds with the gentleness with which he held the bag to Pope’s bruised jaw. “Fucking _ever_ get between my dad and me again. He’s not your problem.”

“What, and he’s yours?” The words burst out of Kie before she could think through the best way to deal with this. “You don’t have to be his punching bag, JJ. Maude chose to work at a bar with no bouncer. She knows how he is. You don’t have to play into his abusive insanity anymore!”

He gritted his teeth, his jaw muscle popping as he bled down his chin and onto his shirt. “I don’t need your psychobabble savior bullshit right now, Kie. What do you know about it? Huh?” His eyes flashed as he cut a glance her way. “Your happy rich fucking family with your mom who cares if you’re _safe._ Living in a house with like four bathrooms and fucking wicker fucking balls on the table because it looks nice.” He scoffed and shame and anger burned up in her, torching her already sore throat. What, like she wasn’t allowed to have problems just because they had decorations on their table? All she’d done tonight was try to help him, damn him. Why was he suddenly mad at _her_?

“Oh, I’m a savior?” She stepped up, voice climbing dangerously. “Well you’re a fucking martyr then, JJ. Because you know what? You didn’t have to stop. You didn’t have to get in the middle of all that. You don’t ever _have_ to go to his house anymore, but you do. All your shit’s here. You’ve got a free roof over your head, with people who actually _like_ you, and you still go back over there all the time!”

“I just needed to—” he started, the bag sagging away from Pope’s face as he argued with her.

“It’s not like you couldn’t borrow tools from Heyward!” she threw back. “So don’t use that as an excuse again because you know it. You choose that shit, JJ, and it’s fucked up. You put yourself right in the middle of it and for what?” She stabbed her finger at his chest, getting in between him and a wide-eyed Pope because she was so, so sick of not saying it, and she’d never understood why he did it. Why he always went home and gave his dad a thousandth chance when he had a whole world of other places to go. “He’s not your problem,” she seethed, her voice dropping low. “I don’t get it, JJ. Maybe it’s because my family is nice to me, what the fuck ever, but I seriously don’t. You let him pound on you like…”

“Like what, Kie?” JJ popped up into her face, the bag of cauliflower dropping onto the floor. “Like it’s my fault? Like I deserve it? I fucking _do_ ,” he hissed. She opened her mouth but he was still talking. “John B and all of you have been telling me I don’t for all these years, and I _let_ you believe that because I don’t want you to know the truth.” JJ took a step back, blinking as the blood started to dry beneath his nose. Suddenly, he looked tired. “Because I don’t want you to look at me like he does.”

“JJ, we wouldn’t,” Pope said, his voice a low rumble. “We never would. We care about you.”

JJ ducked his head, but not before she saw the liquid shine in his wild eyes. “It’s not as simple as some poster in a social worker’s office, like you all want to think it is. You want to know why he drinks? Why he does coke and pops every pill he can find? Because he’s in _pain_.”

JJ sucked in a shaky breath. Pope’s chin jerked toward Kie, his whole body vibrating with anxiety, like he could feel what was coming.

“When I was a kid, he was working on an engine in the garage and I was messing around, wanted him to play with me. I knocked a bucket of hot oil over, and it spilled all over his foot. He was wearing flip flops, and the nerve damage never healed.”

Kie inhaled, her whole chest tingling with horror.

“He drank before that, a little. On Saturday nights and shit. But the pain, it never went away and the docs stopped giving him pills.” JJ’s head came up, his too-long hair sagging into his eyes like it was tired, too. “So he drinks because that’s the only way he can make it go away. Why do you fucking think he hates me so much, Kie?” His whisper hung in the air of the Chateau and she couldn’t think, couldn’t answer.

Couldn’t imagine anybody hating JJ, especially when he’d been a sunny-haired ebullient little boy with permanently grass-stained knees.

“He’s not some terrible head case,” JJ said. “I let you think he was, but honestly, he’s just hurting and it’s my fault and we both know it.”

Kie couldn’t let this go on, not for even one more second. “JJ, you don’t deserve what he does to you.” She reached to hold him, and he shoved her away, backing up until his shoulders hit the fridge. “You _don’t_ ,” she insisted, following him and catching his face even when he wrenched it away so he didn’t have to look at her. “If I burned you right now,” she said, her voice low and urgent, “Hell, if I cut off your _hand_ , you’d never hurt me.”

She stroked his jaw, which was trembling under her palms, his hair falling forward as she raised his face until he had to look at her, tears in both their eyes.

“You’d never hurt me,” she whispered. “You never would. And he doesn’t have to hurt you.” JJ’s shoulders shook, a silent sob rattling up in him as his jaw flexed to hold it in. His eyes glittered, hanging onto hers. “Nobody should ever hurt you.” She pulled him into her arms. “Nobody.”

His sob broke against her neck and his hands were suddenly gripping her back, clenching emptily against her shirt.

“Kie…” It was Pope’s voice, soft and stuttering and lost. But she felt steadier than she’d felt all night as she opened her arm, beckoning him over and letting him fold himself around JJ’s back. She had one boy under each arm and she pressed her cheek to Pope’s hair, kissing JJ’s forehead.

“I’m going to call John B,” she said quietly, firmly. JJ twitched and she held him tighter, her elbow aching with the strength of it. “We’re going to tell him tonight. JJ, you kept this locked up all these years like a secret, like there was a reason it was okay for your father to wail on you like that. It’s bullshit, and John B will know it as soon as he hears it, just like we did.”

JJ was shaking his head against her shoulder, but it was weak. She pressed a fierce kiss to his temple and when she stepped away, Pope’s arms encircled JJ without even an instant of a gap when he wasn’t held.

It took John B less than ten minutes to respond to her SOS text. When he walked in, JJ had retreated to a corner of the living room, stuffed in between an old subwoofer and a water-warped end table. His knees were up and head hanging, his fingers tangled through his own hair.

“Fuck,” John B said, his gaze going immediately to JJ. “Is anything broken? Pope, there’s ice in the freezer, aspirin in the bathroom.” He knelt next to JJ, touching the back of his neck gently but assuredly. “Bro, how bad is it this time?”

JJ’s back shook, and all she could hear was the scraps in between when he let himself go long enough to suck in more air for the sobs he wouldn’t let out. Her bones ached with the need to hold him, but he hadn’t wanted to be touched any more, had told her _no_. She had to respect that.

“JJ, can I tell him?” she said softly.

It was a long moment, the fear rising cold in her chest as she debated what she’d do if he wouldn’t let her. She could see him being too frightened for John B to know, and it wasn’t her secret to share, but it had clearly been festering all this time like a wound never properly cleaned. But his wrecked blonde hair moved up, just a little. Then down. Nodding, with his face still hidden. 

Kie hugged herself tighter, let Pope come up next to her and squeeze her shoulder.

“He accidentally bumped a pail of hot oil when he was a kid. It spilled on his dad’s foot, and it wasn’t until after that that his dad started drinking and pill popping and beating him.”

John B got it immediately. “Oh fuck.” He was silent for barely an instant, then, “JJ, your dad’s a fucking angry dick. You could have spilled a pail of daisies on his foot and he’d still be an angry dick.”

JJ choked, almost laughed, and Kie’s heart lifted, hoping.

John B dropped to his ass, sitting next to JJ in the corner but not trying to touch him, not pushing. “Fourth grade, right?” he asked. “The pail of oil, it was in fourth grade.”

JJ’s head came up, just enough that she could see his swollen eyes, the dried blood smeared across his nose and lip. He nodded, gaze fixed on John B. “How…”

“Dude, do you remember…” John B paused, his eyes going vague. “We had a barbecue at your house, all your cousins running around, in third grade. We were playing wiffle ball and hit the ball into the potato salad. Your dad threw the whole bowl at you.” On Kie’s shoulder, Pope’s hand jerked. She reached up and steadied it with her own. “My dad said we had to go, and after that, we could only play at my house, remember? That was third grade, JJ.”

John B kicked at his foot, nudging him.

“You didn’t make your dad what he was any more than I made mine what _he_ was. I was always asking questions about the Royal Merchant, and treasure, and making him read me pirate books when I was a kid. It’s what got him killed, but he was like that, even before me.” John B paused. “It’s not your fault, how he is.”

JJ made a strangled noise and burst forward with no warning, tackling John B to the floor, his arms locking around him. John B didn’t flinch, just hugged him back, both of them rolling on the sandy hardwood.

“He hit Pope,” Kie heard JJ whisper, sharp and pained. “My fault.”

Pope let go and he knelt by the other two boys. “I jumped in, JJ. You told me to stay in the car, and I didn’t, and I was fucking _proud_ for him to hit me.”

“Pope!” Kie gasped.

He ignored her, focused on their boyfriend. “You hear me? I’d let him beat the shit out of me every day for the rest of my life if he’d never hurt you again.” Pope took him from John B, pulling him up to sitting and cradling his jaw in both palms, pressing kisses down his face. “Please,” he begged, his voice raw. “ _Please._ Don’t let him hurt you any more. Stay away. For us, if not for you. I can’t stand to watch him hurt you, you get it?” Pope took one of JJ’s hands and pressed it over the swelling mark on Pope’s chin where he’d taken Luke’s fist. “You get that, after tonight, don’t you? I fucking hate it, watching him hurt you.”

Kie didn’t hear JJ’s answer, just his ragged breaths as he nodded. She didn’t realize she’d knelt down until she felt the floor hard under her knees.

“Fuck,” JJ managed finally, still fighting to swallow down his silent sobs. “Sorry about this shit, guys.” He knuckled his eyes.

John B scooted up behind him, pulling JJ back into his chest, his wavy hair pressed flat between his cheek and JJ’s as he squeezed him hard. “We love you,” he said gruffly. “We fucking love you, and if we have to kill that bastard to keep you safe, then I’ll do it myself and throw the body down Mrs. Crane’s well with her creepy husband’s skull.”

JJ laughed a little, raising wet eyes that she felt like a jolt when they settled on her. “Sorry about the cuffs, Kie.”

She pushed at his shoulder, scooting closer. “You’re not, you asshole.”

He gave another shaky laugh, a scrap of a smile this time. “I’m not. You’d be in the hospital right now.”

“ _He’d_ be in the hospital,” she threatened. “I had my eye on Maude’s fish bat.”

“Yeah,” John B said, his arms loosening to a more casual hold, but still cradling JJ. “Actually, came down to it, my money’s on Kie.”

Pope laughed, the sound gusty like an exhale, and Kie bumped his shoulder with hers, wiggling in amongst all the knees and arms until she could slip her hands around JJ’s waist, Pope’s shoulders cradling her back. They melted into the kind of jumbled group hug that shouldn’t really ever work with four people but somehow the Pogues always did perfectly.

“I…” JJ started, then the words disappeared into a trembling inhale and he never finished.

“I know, buddy,” John B said, and squeezed them all a little tighter.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: One of the lesser talked about dynamics in abusive relationships is the level to which the subject of the abuse feels complicit in causing the abuse. It can be something they legitimately did wrong and feel bad about, like slapping their abuser when they were angry, or crashing the family car. More often, it’s a situation engineered by the abuser to MAKE the subject feel complicit in the abuse and therefore less likely to leave or ask for help. Like if the abuser picks a fight when they’re both drunk, baits the subject into doing things they’ll later regret, and then tells their subject they were the one at fault. Or like with JJ, where he did something accidental and his abuser repeatedly TOLD him it was his fault and therefore deserved the abuse heaped upon him.
> 
> Here’s the thing, folks. Nobody is ever responsible for abuse but the abuser. They are the one who chose violence. Nothing you do can MAKE someone violent unless they choose to be. Period.


	23. Baby Pictures

**Chapter 23: Baby Pictures**

Kie didn’t really expect JJ to sleep through the night after the fight with his dad outside the bar—JJ rarely slept through the night, not even nowdays when the sleepovers meant Pope curled on one side of him and Kie on the other. He jerked awake with a gasp at two, and she reached over to touch his shoulder, still wide awake because her brain wouldn’t keep replaying Luke Maybank’s foot crashing into JJ’s back, his fist plowing into Pope’s face.

JJ slipped out from under her hand and she let him go, because she knew better than to push. But after an hour, she inched out of bed. She tucked the sheet higher on Pope’s shoulder before she padded silently out the door and down the hall, sand sticking to the soles of her feet where it dusted the cool floorboards. There was a glow of light from the kitchen, but it took her mind a second to sort out the shapes into anything that made sense.

The fridge light, reflected in the windowpane. JJ’s body, stretched out across the floor. He had his head tucked inside the fridge, cheek resting on the bottom edge as he lay on his side.

She crossed her arms, leaned against the doorway. “You know, I’ve seen you take a while to decide what to eat before, but this is a new low.”

He chuckled, but it came out scratchy, and short.

“Ice pack?” She stepped over him and opened the freezer. “I bet the cauliflower has refrozen by now…”

“Ung.” He grunted. “Ice pack only helps one spot at a time. If I put my whole self in the fridge, everything can be cold.”

She couldn’t argue with that. But it made her chew on the inside of her cheek to think of how many places he must be hurting to have to want an ice pack for his whole body.

JJ flipped onto his back. “If it wasn’t my fault, with my dad and the pills and all, if it was just him, the way he always was…”

Kie held her breath. “Yeah?”

“Then he’s an _asshole_ ,” JJ exhaled.

“Well…yeah.”

He squinted up at her, through the golden light of the fridge. His face was lumpy with swelling, but his skin was so clear it made him look so fucking young. “And that he’d tell me it was me, not him, this whole time, like…it’s not that I didn’t know he was an asshole, but this…” he sputtered out again, glancing away to pick at a splotch of ketchup on the inside of the fridge with one thumbnail. “I mean, what does it mean when your dad is…like that.”

She dropped to sit next to him, crosslegged on the sandy floor. “Means you need to stay away from him.”

She was trying, so hard, but tears bit at the lower edges of her eyes and she had to bite on her cheek again to try to keep her voice steady. To keep from reaching for him.

“JJ…”

“Don’t,” he whispered.

“Doesn’t mean anything about you,” she said anyway. Quickly, before he could stop her. “He’s always been an asshole, and you’ve always been you, and we love you. Doesn’t change anything.”

JJ stared at the wall of the fridge. It looked like it had changed something for him, this time. She hoped it was the right things, that seeing Pope take a punch meant for him had made him realize how much it hurt them when he went home again. But she also knew she couldn’t push him any further tonight.

“So, I don’t know if it’s too soon to ask about this…” The corner of her mouth curled upwards. “But can we talk about why you just so happened to have pink fuzzy handcuffs in your backpack?”

His breath came out in a near-soundless laugh, and he grinned, so handsome even all scuffed up with his head in a refrigerator that it made Kie’s chest throb a little bit.

She poked him with her toe. “You been holding out on me?”

“I was gonna try them on Pope.” He flashed her a look, that old wicked heat sparking a little in his eyes. “Well, _we_ were going to try them on Pope. Maybe during the sleepover after the kegger at the Boneyard later this week.”

“For Pope, not me?” She arched an eyebrow, not quite sure if she should feel left out or complimented.

“Nah, unless you’d be into that. I figured if I busted out handcuffs on you, I’d be the one who ended up getting dominitrixed. But Pope…it’s fun to watch him squirm and get all crazy. I knew he’d tug too hard and hurt himself if I didn’t get padded ones, but they only came in pink.” JJ shrugged. “I can be into that.”

“What _can’t_ you be into?” she scoffed, smiling and laughing a little all at once.

That spark in his eye caught and heated as he focused on her. “Try me. Please.”

She shifted on the floor. “You know, John B went home with Sarah…”

“Yeah?”

“So maybe we should wake up Pope and put those handcuffs to their intended use,” she proposed. “Neither of us are sleeping, why should he get to?”

“This is why I love you,” JJ told her. “Your brain is hardcore.”

“I think you mean brilliant,” she teased, hamming it up with a little hair toss, happy to see him distracted and smiling again.

“I mean hardcore,” he insisted, rolling up off the floor more easily than she’d expect, given all the visible bruises his lack of a shirt revealed. He pulled her to standing, but as she led the way toward the bedroom, his quiet voice gave her pause. “Kie…if I started turning into an asshole like my dad, you’d tell me, right?”

She started to make a joke about already having the handcuffs, but it was too real. Too important. “Yes,” she said instead, and took his hand. “But you won’t.”

#

It was the night of the party they’d all been looking forward to, but the Boneyard wasn’t the same these days. Sarah hadn’t even joined them, and they’d never come home from a kegger before dark before, before JJ was even too drunk to drive. But Kie kept reaching for Pope’s hand and forgetting she wasn’t supposed to touch him in public, and girls kept flirting with JJ. When a tall, handsome blond from the mainland handed Pope a beer, JJ snatched it away so hard the foam had sprayed up over the rim and onto the mainlander.

“He doesn’t drink,” JJ had snapped, stepping toe to toe with the taller guy. And that was when they went home, before JJ could get arrested. Again.

Now, Kie lay her head back against the ropes of the hammock, aching into her bones like she’d been in a fight. She had no reason to be so tired. This was just how it was now. How it had to be. Pope reached over and covered her hand with his, his thumb playing with the ring JJ had given her, smoothing down the silver band of it. She let out a breath, relaxing a little. Pope didn’t wear much jewelry, but he liked to touch hers and JJ’s, like it soothed him the same way it did them. Like it meant the same to all of them, no matter who was wearing it.

“You guys,” Pope said, and something about his tone made her snap her eyes open. “I think I’m ready for people to know. About us, I mean.”

Kie and JJ swapped a look. He shrugged, and relief ballooned in her chest. She hadn’t realized, at least not consciously, that what they’d really been waiting on was Pope. Kie would take on the whole world for her boys, teeth-first. Even the _thought_ that some people might reject their relationship made her want to stand up even taller for who they were. And JJ…he didn’t give a fuck who knew, she knew he didn’t. If his dad found out, he’d say something ugly and that dark bit of shadow would come into JJ’s eyes, but that shadow lurked every time he saw his dad anyway. And all of them had long since given up on Luke saying anything that didn’t cause pain.

Past that, JJ would be who he was in the open, the way he always had, and fight anybody who didn’t like it. So would Kie. But Pope…Pope worried.

“We’re solid. That’s not changing. Keeping it secret makes it feel wrong,” Pope said. “And it’s not wrong.”

“We’re not wrong,” Kie agreed, flipping her hand over and gripping his tightly.

“Fuck yeah,” John B said, and lifted out of his lawn chair long enough to slap the quick Pogue handshake to Pope’s free hand.

“JJ?” Pope said, his voice more hesitant than Kie would have expected.

“I love you.”

Kie looked up at how easily he said it, how steady he sounded. JJ lit a cigarette, shaking out the match when he was done, and inhaling deep.

“People are gonna be assholes,” he said to Pope on the exhale. “I don’t want you to feel bad, when they do. We don’t have to tell people ever, if you don’t want to deal with that. We are who we are. Keeping it private won’t change that.”

“It does for me.” The whites of Pope’s eyes were stark against his smooth, earnest face and Kie scooted a little closer to him, the hammock swaying. “I want to tell my parents, first.”

JJ nodded, trading another glance with Kie. “We’ll all go with you.”

“Nuh-uh, no way.” Pope was already shaking his head. “If they say something to hurt either of you, I’ll get pissed off and it’ll all go sideways.”

JJ smirked. “You gotta get a handle on that temper of yours, Chief.”

Pope flipped him off and John B laughed. “Pot, kettle much?”

JJ flipped both of them off right back. “Whatever. Like either of you can talk.”

John B got up and dusted off the seat of his shorts. “I’ll go.”

Pope looked up, his forehead creasing. “You don’t have to do that, John B.”

“Course I do. You shouldn’t have to do it alone, and I won’t lose my temper.”

JJ snorted.

“I won’t, asshole.” John B knocked JJ’s hat off, then immediately threw up a hand to protect his own hat. JJ went low instead, yanking the drawstring of his board shorts so John B had to grab for them as they started to fall. Once his hands were busy, JJ flicked John B’s hat off, caught it and flipped it up onto his own head, backwards. Then took another drag of his cigarette.

“John B’s right,” JJ said. “You shouldn’t go alone.”

“Tomorrow,” Pope said. “I’ve waited too long already.”

John B nodded. “Cool. I’ll turn off my Uber so no rides come in.”

Kie watched them, her stomach a little queasy. “You think they’ll take it okay?”

Pope nodded. “My dad’s gonna be weirded out, but he won’t have a problem or anything. Probably. And my mom’ll be okay.”

That sounded about right to Kie. But she still felt uneasy, and her hand was starting to sweat in Pope’s. She pulled it back before he could notice. “I guess I need to tell my parents, too.”

“Why?” JJ blew out a long stream of smoke. “They’re just going to be dicks about it, and then you’ll be mad at them. Do you really want to go off to travel the world at the end of the summer when you’re in a fight?”

Kie glared at him. “I’m not ashamed of you two.”

“Why would you be? We’re handsome as hell.” He grinned at her. “But no daddy on earth wants to think about one guy slipping it to his little princess, much less two.”

“They’ve never liked us that much, Kie,” John B put in.

Kie bristled. “So?”

“We’re two broke asses from the Cut, Kie,” JJ said. “They aren’t going to send you a Hallmark card for this, no matter how you wish shit was. Better not to bother and just live how we want behind their backs, the way we’ve always done. Just spend the night with ‘Chelsea from school’ some more.”

She ground her teeth, but he wasn’t wrong about her parents. Even if everything about that sat badly with her.

Her other boyfriend had been silent, and she turned to him. “Pope, what do you think?”

“I think you’re not going to feel right until you tell them,” he said quietly. “And it’s gonna be hard. I’ll come with you, if you want me to.” He paused, thinking. “Maybe we should break the news and ask them not to react yet. I can provide some reading and resources, a few informative YouTube videos. We give them a week to adjust and then talk again.”

She poked him with her toe. “That’s really well thought out, Pope, but you haven’t met my mom if you think she’s going to wait a week to tell you exactly what she thinks.”

“Ah the blood, it runs true…” JJ laughed.

Kie kicked at him from the hammock. “JJ, do you really not want me to tell my parents about us? Seriously. Like, ever?”

“You can tell every seagull in the bay if you want, gorgeous. But when it goes like shit, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.” He dropped an arm along the edge of the hammock, warm and steady where it lay alongside her leg.

John B slapped at a mosquito. “We better go in. Bugs are out in force.”

She got up and followed him, the other Pogues trailing behind. “How come Sarah didn’t come over tonight?”

“She’s sick of Boneyard parties,” he said, “and she thought that’s where we’d be all night. Says they’re—”

“Whoa, where’d these come from?” JJ had zeroed in on the new baby pictures pinned to the corkboard with all John B’s old snapshots.

John B gave her an uneasy look and she crossed her arms. He shook his head, just like he had about the rooster.

“Kie, how were you such an ugly baby?” JJ laughed, leaning in for a closer look. “How is that even possible? And Pope, you’re really rocking that Ninja Turtle onesie. Points for flair, my man.” Then he saw his own baby picture and went still. “What the fuck?”

“I thought they’d be nice,” Kie said, and JJ whirled, his hands coming up to grip his head. The fabric of his stolen hat crumpled in his fists and he threw it to the floor.

“How the _fuck_ did you get that picture from my dad?”

Pope stepped in front of Kie. “I went to get it, not her.”

“Are you fucking _insane_?” JJ seethed. “After what he did to you last week? Do you not understand how dangerous he is?” He grabbed Pope by the shirt. “It’s not just getting smacked around, do you fucking get that? One time, he held my face down on the stove, so close to the burner I could see it glow red. When I blinked, I singed off all my fucking eyelashes _do you understand why you can never go there alone_?”

Kie couldn’t breathe. John B came up behind him and tried to pull him back from Pope, but JJ threw him off.

“How bad do you think it would be if he’d caught you breaking in? Stealing from him?”

Pope reached up and laid his hand on JJ’s shoulder, not trying to break his grip on Pope’s shirt. “I went at 10:30 in the morning,” he said. “He was sober. I brought my dad for backup, and I didn’t break in. I _asked_ for the baby picture, said it was for a genetics project. He apologized, actually, for the other night. Said he wasn’t himself.”

Kie came closer, put her hand on JJ’s quivering back.

“This is our home,” she said. “I thought we should have our pictures up.”

JJ let go of Pope’s shirt and his head fell. Pope slung an arm over JJ’s back and pulled him into a hug. “It’s cool,” was all he said.

“Look,” Kie said. “I thought this one was cute. I printed it from my phone.” She pointed to one of the four of them with their tongues all out, making silly faces. She’d put that one in a cheap wooden frame, all painted with little fish and turtles.

JJ swallowed, his eyes hanging up on the picture and not moving on. “Guess it really is our place now.”

“Least until tomorrow, when Heyward hears you two deflowered his son.” John B smirked. “And he kills you both.”

“Not funny.” Kie pointed warningly at him.

“Too soon,” Pope agreed.

But JJ grinned. “Bring it on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: YAY for 5 People's Choice Nominations for Outer Banks! So proud of those hard-working actors and everybody who came together to make that show as great as it is. Hope they win a thing (or five!).


	24. Ask John B

John B had been in a lot of tense situations. He’d had a gun held on him (too many times), a gun fired at him (way too many times), been arrested, beat up, half-drowned, and orphaned. The thing that had him on edge today wasn’t that he was more afraid of Big Heyward than he was of all those things (even though he totally was). The thing today was, Pope was acting weird.

He wasn’t nervous, for one. Pope was always nervous, and tonight was a big ass deal. Big enough that John B had only swiped _one_ dinner roll out of the kitchen while Pope’s mama was cooking, and hadn’t snuck a single finger into the dessert. He’d had to turn his phone off, because Kie had already texted for updates thirteen times and Sarah twice. JJ hadn’t chimed in a thing, which probably meant he was arrested, or wasted, or both.

JJ wasn’t the best at sitting around, waiting for tense news.

The second reason John B was on edge was that Pope had that look in his eye. The laser focused, _somebody’s gonna die_ look. He’d never been there on the infrequent occasions that Pope’s temper had blown, but both JJ and Kie liked to tell the stories. Especially when they were drunk, their hands gesturing more and more damage. To property, and also people (fucking Rafe).

John B wasn’t sure who would take the brunt of it if Pope went Mt. Vesuvius in his family home, but he didn’t like his chances.

Yvonne Heyward hadn’t noticed Pope’s news—she was focused on creaming the corn. And Heyward hadn’t noticed, either—he’d gotten a call and was pretty busy with the person on the other end of the line that he was growling half to death.

Pope passed him, headed for the table, and John B cuffed his arm, lightly. “Hey man.” He didn’t say anything else, just tilted his head in the universal sign for _You good?_

Pope didn’t answer. He just sat down at the dining room table, alone.

John B wiggled his jaw, enjoying its non-broken feel. It was a good thing he’d kissed Sarah a whole lot yesterday. Probably was going to be a while before he got the chance again. He bent his knees and straightened them a couple of times, limbering up. He was going to have to be quick if Heyward said anything less than glowing about JJ or Kie. Mostly, in order to get in between them in time that he’d take the hit. Pope still hadn’t forgiven himself for the last time he’d gone after his dad in a haze of anger, when he was stealing gas for John B’s escape off the island.

John B went and moved one of the placemats so he was sitting next to Pope, instead of across from him. His dad at the head of the table, his mom at the foot. John B’s heart stumbled a little, thinking of what it’d be like to still have his family so close that they could all sit at the same table. He brushed Pope’s shoulder with his knuckles.

“Hey. Shove down so I can sit over here.”

Pope blinked. Glanced at the two empty chairs on the other side of the table. But he didn’t ask. He just picked up his placemat and utensils and stood up. Slammed them down to the table and sat in the next chair over, closest to where his mom would be. John B covered his wince with a smile.

“Good, yeah, cool. So uh, how’s that outboard going? The one JJ and Kie have all in pieces, out back of the marina? I’m kinda thinking they’re ambitious to go for another vintage rebuild. JJ’s just drunk on that bonus from McReedus, still. They should just stick to fixing people’s regular broke-ass—I mean, broken boat engines. That’s where the easy money is. Instead of trying to flip this exotic stuff.”

The longer Pope didn’t respond, the longer John B tried to spin out his babbling. But he wasn’t Kiara, for Christ’s sake. He couldn’t talk motors _all day_. You put oil in them, you put fuel in them, you cursed them when they broke, and messed with them until they ran again. That’s what John B knew about engines. He checked his phone, but the stream of notification bubbles filling up his home screen spooked him and he shoved it back into his pocket just as Mrs. Heyward entered the kitchen with a pan laden heavy with meatloaf.

“Hey there, baby,” she cooed at him. “You need me to cut your hair again? I’m off early next Thursday, you just come on by. Haven’t seen you in so long, I swear you grew another inch taller.”

John B smiled, happy to be on familiar ground again. Sarah had trimmed his hair just last week, but he nodded his agreement anyway. He wasn’t sure why women always wanted to be cutting his hair, but he didn’t mind, and it grew fast enough it didn’t seem to hurt anything to keep letting them. In a pinch, he could always send JJ, and Yvonne would probably hardly notice the difference.

Heyward came out of the kitchen with dishes in both hands and gave John B a distracted smile. “Good to see you, kid. Been a minute. You doing okay out at that place of yours without your dad? Need anything? More shingles for that leaky patch on the roof, maybe? I got half a box left over from the renovations out on the Diellé’s place. Could pass those your way if you don’t mind ‘em not matching and all.”

“No, no,” John B said, then remembered that drip in the back hallway. “You know, actually, if they’re just leftovers crowding up the shed, I could take them off your hands. You know this island.” He grinned up at Heyward, his foot jiggling underneath the table. “If it ain’t leaking yet, it will be soon.”

Heyward laughed, round and hearty, and took his place at the head of the table. “Ain’t that God’s honest truth? Yeah, I’ll throw those shingles in the back of Pope’s truck in the morning, figure he’ll end up out your way sooner or later and you can grab ‘em then.”

He sat down and reached for the meatloaf, and Pope said, “Dad Mom I need to talk to you about something I’m bisexual.”

Heyward’s hand paused halfway to the pan. John B’s stomach growled into the silence. Shit, he’d been hoping Pope would let them get a little eating done before they got to the fireworks. But they were in it now. He squared his shoulders and leaned a little closer to Pope so their shirt sleeves brushed.

“That means I have a romantic and sexu—”

“I know what a damned bisexual is, Pope, you don’t have to bring me a dictionary,” Heyward blustered. “I didn’t realize—” He swapped a look with his wife, who had both hands up over her face and tears starting in her eyes. “But okay.” He resettled in his chair. “I’m glad you told us. You know we don’t care who you date as long as they treat you right.”

John B was afraid to blink. Somehow, it didn’t seem like it was allowed. He turned his head—very, very slowly, just in case—and checked on Pope. His friend also looked like he was abiding by the unspoken no-blinking rule.

“So, then.” Heyward cleared his throat and John B realized both parents were looking at him. “Are you seeing anybody in particular?”

“Not me.” John B raised his hands, attempted to look innocent. “I mean, obviously I knew, but it’s not me, he’s not with me. But he could be!” he jumped to add. “I mean, except I’m straight. I’m just saying I’d be fine with that, obviously. Except straight. And Sarah, and all.”

Heyward’s lips twitched and John B thought he might even score a laugh out of that whole rambly mess, but then Yvonne bolted out of her seat, fully crying now as she hugged Pope.

“Oh baby, you know we love you. Have you been sitting on this, worrying on it, this whole time? Of course we love you, you don’t ever have to worry about telling us anything that—”

“That’s not all.” Pope didn’t even let her finish.

John B really didn’t like the way Pope was sitting with his back psychopath straight, without even putting his hands over his mom’s arms where she was hugging him. It was possible John B had underestimated how much of a big deal Pope’s parents might make about this. Because judging by their son’s reaction—

“I’m in a polyamorous triad,” Pope said.

There was a long pause.

“I…might need a dictionary for that one,” Heyward admitted faintly.

“It means I’m in a relationship with two people.” Pope hesitated as if he was taking a breath but John B, from a fairly good vantage point, did not feel that he had. “One woman, and one man.”

His mom pulled back, fumbling as she tried to pat Pope’s arm and wipe at her eyes at the same time. “Oh! Well…oh. Then, I…hmm, then.”

Heyward definitely did take a breath. John B’s neck hurt a little bit from whipping back and forth to monitor all of them. He suddenly wished he’d let Kie take this watch. Or Sarah. Sarah was really good with people. John B did not feel he was good enough with people for… _this_. Whatever this was about to be.

“Do these two people you’re dating…um, well, honey, I mean, do they…know about each other?” Yvonne asked. John B’s foot bounced harder.

“I’m not dating each of them, Mom, we’re all dating each other.” Pope gestured a circle. “We’re all together.”

“So you’re just…with lots of people?” Heyward said, faintly.

“No, just them. Us, I mean. Together. All of us.”

John B flexed his knees under the table, limbering up.

Heyward clasped his hands on the table in front of him, a crease appearing between his eyebrows. “I don’t think that’s really a relationship, son. I understand when you’re young, it’s fun to—”

Pope jerked to standing and John B jumped up with him, both their chairs sliding back and Pope’s tipping over. “I am not so young that I don’t understand the emotional, romantic, and cultural layers of what constitutes a relationship, and if you can’t—”

“Boy, you best watch your tone…” Heyward warned as Yvonne leapt back, her hands fluttering at her chest.

“No, Dad,” Pope said loudly. “You watch _your_ tone. I came here to be honest, because I want you to know the truth about me and my life. I don’t want to sneak around or lie to you about something that I am not ashamed of, and I have no need to hide. But this was to put you on notice that if you can’t accept them, you’ll see a lot less of me in the future, because they are my family, too.”

John B understood, somewhat belatedly, why Pope had been so tense. He wasn’t gearing up to come out. He was gearing up to leave his family, if he had to. For JJ and Kie. He’d even rehearsed the fucking _speech._

“They are my life,” Pope said, “and that is not going to change. So you think on it and decide if you can accept that, but it’s happening either way.” He turned, precisely, and walked around his shaking, speechless mother, and out of the room.

Well, _fuck._ John B, if he had a family still, wouldn’t have left them for just about anything. The Pogues and Sarah, maybe. But more likely he’d just fucking lie about it so he could have both. Still, there was clearly only one move here.

“Uh, thanks for dinner.” He moved after Pope, stumbling over a chair and catching himself on the table and—rather unfortunately—the bowl of creamed corn. He jumped straight again, wiping his damp hand on his cargo shorts and taking a quick step after his friend, already reaching for his phone to call in the Pogues.

“John B! Boy, can you…” Heyward was thumping his chest with a fist, blinking down at the table. John B thumbed his phone, uncertain if maybe he should call for an ambulance. Didn’t Big Heyward take heart pills? “Wait a minute, would you?”

“Uh, of course, Mr. H.” He glanced after Pope, but this was what he came for, really. John B was very familiar with all the ways one could put one’s foot in one’s mouth, and he had figured Pope’s parents would have questions. Quickly, he texted SOS to Kie. That would take care of Pope. He put his phone away. Waited.

Into the silence, his stomach growled.

Yvonne was dabbing faster and faster at her eyes with a napkin, but she patted his shoulder. “Sit down and eat, baby,” she said, her voice shaky. “I can tell you’re hungry. Unless, wait, you need to go after Pope…” Her voice cracked and she shoved the napkin harder against her eyes, tears starting to streak down her cheek as she grabbed a dinner roll. Crying into the napkin held in one hand, she thrust the dinner roll at him with the other.

John B took it, bewildered. As she started to collapse, he darted to grab his chair and stuff it under her, smashing a corner of the roll he still held in one hand. She sat down heavily and started to sob. “My poor boy, he must be so…”

From a lot of years of Kie’s lectures about emotional labor, John B knew exactly what to do. He hugged Yvonne, her scent odd and powdery in his nose. “Pope’ll be okay,” he said easily. “He’s happy as a pig in—well, anyway, he’s doing great, these days. Just wanted you guys to know, well, about him.”

He glanced at Heyward, whose forehead was creased deeply as he stared down at the table.

John B patted Yvonne’s shoulder and righted Pope’s fallen chair, taking his spot. “I know this is all a little like… _whoa_ ,” he said. “It’s okay if you have questions. I know I did.”

Yvonne looked up from her napkin, her cheeks streaked with black mascara smudges. “Are they…having safe sex?”

“They absolutely are.” John B was a little irritated by how many of his own condoms they’d been swiping when they ran out, but JJ maintained they had twice as many dicks to cover, so they ran through them faster. John B figured that was a fair enough argument, mathematically speaking.

Heyward’s big hands were twisting the edge of his placemat. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it, I guess. I just never thought…in my day people didn’t do that kind of thing.”

“Actually, they probably did.” Kie and John B had had a long conversation about this over blunts last weekend. “People just had ‘roommates’ back in the day, and neighbors didn’t ask too many questions.” John B shrugged. “People have always been people. It’s just now, more and more of what we’ve always been like is out in the open because well, there’s not any way of being that’s righter than anything else, when it comes to who you love.” He paused, thinking Kie might have been able to phrase that better.

“So it’s love already and this is the first we’ve been hearing about any of this?” Heyward scowled thunderously. “How long has this been going on, then?”

John B felt a little weird about giving specifics without Pope’s permission, but Pope was not in a frame of mind to be able to answer questions at the moment. “Think back,” he hinted. “Have you happened to notice that Pope’s doing better lately?”

Yvonne looked up. “He stopped eating all the Rolaids and started sleeping again.”

“He’s not late for work no more, no talking back,” Heyward put in. “Laughing more, like a boy should, instead of being so wound up all the time.”

John B nodded. “About how long would you say it’s been like that?”

“Maybe a month or two?”

John B nodded again, starting to smile. “Yeah. About that long.”

Yvonne smiled too, her tears slowing. “Oh. Oh, so it’s all this that made my Pope perk back up again. It’s…them?”

“About two months then,” Hayward said. He hesitated. “Do you know these people he’s dating? Are you sure they’re not taking advantage, or got him hooked into some weird sex thing? Are they… _mainlanders_?”

“It is not just a sex thing.” John B avoided looking at Yvonne, his heel starting to bounce under the table again. He really wasn’t prepared to talk the bees or the birds with Mr. and Mrs. Heyward. “Yeah, no, nope. Not that.”

“Pope’s young, hasn’t dated much,” Yvonne put in, shredding her damp napkin. “He might be thinking they want something more serious because that’s what he would want.”

John B shook his head. “Officially it’s been a couple of months, but those two— they cared about Pope for a lot longer than that. That was true before sex or dating ever came into it. You don’t have to worry about that, Mrs. H.”

“So the two of them already knew—” Heyward’s face changed. “Wait. You’re not talking about—”

John B bolted to standing. “That’s Pope’s business to tell you, not mine. I had better get going and check on him.”

“John B!” Yvonne caught him by the side pocket of his cargo shorts, tugging at them. “The other two. What if they run off with each other and leave my Pope? He’s quiet, people tend to just overlook him, and—”

“Nobody loves Pope more than they do,” John B said quietly, patting her shoulder. “I promise, Mrs. H. That’s not gonna be a problem.” He snatched his dinner roll off the table and stuffed it into his pocket. “I’ll make sure he calls you guys.” He walked backward toward the door. “I mean, as long as you’re good with all this. You’re good, right?”

“We’re his parents.” Heyward glared so darkly John B was surprised the floor didn’t quake under the weight of his voice. “Of course we’re ‘good’ with our son.”

John B grinned. “Thought so. Thanks for dinner, Mrs. H.” He ducked out of the dining room, eager to update Pope. Except the other guy had been his ride, and now he was short a set of wheels. Well, guess he was getting home the old fashioned way.

John B was good at running from the cops, but surprisingly short-winded when it came to jogging. He had to walk a few times before he found Pope’s truck parked on the shoulder of the road, some low hanging wisps of Spanish moss tickling the roof. That was good. That meant the Pogues had intercepted him and picked him up before he’d driven too far. He wriggled under the truck and plucked the spare key from its hiding spot inside the bumper, then hopped in and drove to the Chateau.

Sarah was waiting on the screened-in porch, her hair twisted so tightly around her finger that it sprung out a little wavy when she released it. She jumped to her feet and hugged him. “Are you okay? Was it horrible? Pope was…weird when he got back.”

“No, wasn’t bad. Pope took off before his parents really had a minute to get their heads around the whole thing, that’s all.” He glanced through the window at the empty living room, then realized why Sarah had probably been on the porch. “They in the bedroom?”

She nodded, but didn’t follow him inside. He knocked on the bedroom door, having a pretty good idea of how JJ and Kie might try to distract and comfort Pope. “You all decent? Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” JJ called right away, but John B knew better. He paused and waited through the muffled sounds of Kie and Pope getting dressed until she called, “It’s okay now.”

He walked in and Kie was just pulling her hair out from under the collar of one of JJ’s Pelican Marina shirts. She had her own shorts on, and JJ didn’t seem to be wearing anything, but mostly John B was focused on Pope, who was shirtless in the bed, his hands fisted in the sheets to either side of him. He was still sitting very straight, the tension radiating from him all the way across the room.

“What’d they say?”

“They’re cool.” John B shrugs. “They were a little parental about the whole thing, but mostly I think they just didn’t realize committed throuples were a thing. Also, probably kinda pissed you didn’t tell them sooner.”

Pope twitched, like his muscles were so tight they were twanging.

“Really?” he said after a moment, and John B smiled. But before he could say anything, Pope’s phone rang from the nightstand.

He picked it up. “Hello? Oh. Um, yes, sir. No, yeah.” He relaxed fractionally. “Sorry, I ran off before you could—right.” He cleared his throat. “Me too. Yeah, put her on. Hey mama, it’s alright. C’mon, don’t—I love you, too. Uh-huh.” He looked away, listening.

John B caught Kie’s eye and nodded toward the kitchen, starting to back toward the door to give Pope some privacy. JJ had thrown on a pair of shorts and he scooped a set of panties off the floor. John B didn’t look too closely at them, because he was pretty sure they were Kie’s, and that made him feel weird. JJ tossed the panties at Pope, giving him a crooked smile. His boyfriend looked up and casually flipped him off, looking way less stressed than he had a minute ago. JJ followed John B out and as they closed the door, they heard, “Yes, mama, I ate some dinner. No, I did! Okay, I will, though.”

“If they’re on to Mama H worrying if he’s eaten, things must be okay,” Kie ventured.

“Did he tell them who he was dating yet?” JJ asked, grabbing up a box of Cheez-Its and tossing a handful in his mouth. “I just wanna know if I need to wear my bulletproof boxer shorts to my next shift at the marina.”

“Didn’t tell them a thing,” John B said. “Think we’re in the clear, for now.” But then they all froze at the next words drifting through the thin bedroom door.

“You want me to bring them to dinner? _Both_ of them?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Hey, all! I was planning on keeping this fic going all the way into their adulthood, but I’m running out of energy and my original fiction is demanding more attention, so I’m going to wrap this one up at the end of their last summer after high school. Just a few more chapters now!


	25. Meet the Parents

The first point of contention about dinner was what to bring. “If you show up empty-handed,” Kie pointed out, “you’re a mooch.”

“Then we should bring something expensive,” JJ said immediately.

“Like an outboard motor?”

Kie shot John B a dirty look. “No. Not like a motor.”

“But what could Big Heyward need more than a boat motor?” JJ protested, moving to John B’s side. “He’s always got busted boats he needs to get running, and I’ve been rehabbing this—”

Kie turned the look on JJ and he shut up. “No, not like a gift. It has to be just something for dinner or it looks like one-upmanship. It’s a gesture, not a demonstration.”

JJ considered this. “Beer?”

“Wine’s classier,” John B put in.

“We’re underage,” Pope said.

“A…” JJ was really thinking hard now. “Steak?”

Kie dropped her forehead to the kitchen table and banged it gently against the surface. “Let me handle what to bring. But do not wear anything that has a hole in it, so help me God, JJ, or I will…”

It turned out that JJ’s closet needed a lot of help from God, and John B’s wasn’t much better. And he couldn’t borrow from Pope, because it was Pope’s parents they needed to impress.

“Can’t we just sew the holes closed?” John B asked, pointing at a button-down that had been tossed into the corner. “This one only had a little hole.”

“Don’t look at me,” Kie said, tossing out another pair of frayed pants. “I’ve never sewed anything in my life.”

“I can do it,” John B said, and they all stopped to look at him. “What? My dad taught me how to mend nets, and then when I ripped the hem out of my good jeans that weekend, he showed me it’s basically all the same shit, just a smaller needle.” He waggled his fingers. “Hand ‘em over.”

JJ looked at him.

“Yes, really,” John B said.

JJ passed him the shirt. “Owe you, man.”

“Hey, now that I hear you give such great blow jobs…”

“Way over the line,” said Sarah’s voice from the living room. “Way, John B. So far over you probably can’t even see it in your rearview mirror anymore.”

John B shrugged, Pope’s lips twitched toward a laugh and JJ said, “Hey, at least she finally learned you can hear through all the walls in this place.”

Once wardrobe was nailed down, the next hurdle was getting ready. Kie stuck with a restrained swipe of mascara and a nude eye shadow that she thought made her look older, and left her hair down in soft curls. But an hour after that, JJ was still sitting on the closed lid of the toilet as she and the comb battled it out over his head.

“Gahhh!” she finally groaned, pitching the comb into the hallway, where Pope had to jump out of its way. “It should be physically impossible, but the better you try to make it, the worse it gets. When you just let it spray all over the place it looks great, but—”

JJ peeked up at her through his pouf of disobedient hair. “Why, are you flirting with me? I have a dinner to get to, ma’am. I can’t just be at your beck and call to satisfy all of your…urges.”

She ignored him. “John B, can you do anything with this mess?”

He poked his head into the bathroom, took a look. “Sometimes when I have a date I put a little water on my hair so it doesn’t get so puffy.” He wandered in, shirtless in old board shorts and part of a sandwich in one hand that JJ promptly stole. “Like this.” He wet his fingers and ran them quickly through JJ’s hair.

“Huh.” Kie tilted her head. “That’s…not half-bad. Okay, don’t touch it and JJ, don’t roll the window down on the way to dinner.”

“Fine.” he said. “But you gotta ask yourself one question, kid: do you feel lucky?”

“No quoting Dirty Harry at dinner,” Pope said.

“It’s ‘a’ question, not ‘one’ question,” John B objected.

JJ ignored them both. “Because you spent all that time on my hair…” His eyes glinted. “And you never went and got a present. So outboard motor it is, baby!”

“Shit!” Kie yelped, grabbing up her phone and swearing again when she saw the time.

JJ grabbed her around the waist and hugged her, grinning while she swatted at him, yelping, “Don’t mess up your hair!” and he crowed, “Outboard motorrrrr for the win!” and then John B’s voice broke in, an octave lower than theirs and a little hesitant as he said, “Pope? Uh…”

They all turned to look and Pope’s eyes were glistening, his arms crossed hard over his chest. He cleared his throat, but it must not have worked because his voice still came out a little quaky when he said, “I just love you guys.”

“Fuck’s sake, Chief,” JJ said, pulling him into a rough hug. “Don’t cry about it, though.”

Kie groaned when she saw what their roughhousing had done to his hair. “It looks even better now. Jesus.”

“Unfair,” Sarah agreed.

“You coming with us, then?” John B asked as he shimmied into a shirt and Kie scooped up her bag.

“To that bloodbath? I’ve had enough family drama to last me a lifetime, thanks.” She waved them toward the door. “Besides, somebody’s got to keep the home fires lit and the joints rolled for when y’all get home.”

“You roll,” JJ opined, “the shittiest joints of all time.”

She winked. “Guess we’ll have to use the bong, then.”

JJ was halfway out the door and at that, he tried to double back. “Sorry, you guys,” he said, “but I’m leaving you both for Sarah.”

Kie caught him by the front of his shirt and dragged him toward the van, already dialing her phone with the other hand. “Nope, babe,” she said. “Not a chance. Hey, Dad?” she said into the phone. “Please, please tell me you have a pie left that you haven’t cut into. Oh my gosh that’s—wait, blackberry or lemon meringue? Yeah. Uh-huh. Probably the lemon, then. Thank you, seriously, you’re my favorite dad. Be there in five.”

She let go of JJ’s collar, smoothed it, kissed Pope on the cheek and slid her phone back in her bag. “We gotta drop by the Wreck on the way.”

“You tell him about us yet?” JJ prompted.

She gave him a dirty look. “Don’t even with me today, Maybank. One set of parents at a time.” And she slid the van’s door shut.

#

Forks scraped against plates, underlining the silence.

The Heyward’s big table was full, with John B and Pope on one side, Kie and JJ on the other. She’d been here a thousand times but somehow, with them knowing about her, knowing she was with both their son and JJ and maybe even suspecting that they’d all been together…It was completely different, looking the Heywards in the eye with all that between them. She hadn’t expected how exposed she’d feel for someone other than the Pogues to know about them. Their relationship felt…too personal to share with the rest of the world. Too intimate for other people to be privy to.

She stole a glance at John B, and was a little soothed by the sight of him wolfing down his dinner like everything was normal, a speck of potato salad clinging to the scraggling strands of his not-quite-a-mustache. He’d spoken to the Heywards more about this than any of them, so if he thought it was fine, it should be fine. Then again, it had _never_ been this quiet during a dinner at the Heyward’s. Mama H had fussed over the golden-brown swirls of Kie’s lemon meringue pie, just like normal, but nothing after that had been like it normally was, over here. They’d already dispensed with the topics of the weather and school.

No one had brought up the throuple.

Was this how it was going to be now? Acting just the same, only with an elephant sized thing in the middle of it all that no one was allowed to name? How would it be with her own parents?

Kie became aware that Big Heyward had stopped eating and was looking at her. Her eyes flicked self-consciously down. _No._ She straightened and met his gaze, angry that she’d been uncomfortable even for a second, about something she was not at all ashamed of. Of Pope, who any person on earth would be lucky as hell to date. Kie’s eyes flared as she stared down Heyward and under the table, JJ’s knuckles bumped her leg softly. She flicked a glance at him and he smirked, murmuring, “Down, Killer.”

“So,” Heyward said, his voice booming into the silence. “What are your intentions toward my son?”

Kie took a breath. She’d been rehearsing answers to questions like this all night. Fresh energy coursed through her, now that they were dealing with the issue head-on. “I think I could speak for JJ, but I won’t.”

She paused and squared her shoulders.

“I’m too young to get married,” she said, her thumb flicking at the thin silver ring on the center finger of her left hand. “But Pope isn’t a fling, or an experiment for me. I can’t imagine a life for myself where I don’t love your son.” She held Heyward’s eyes, her mind racing to put names to all the different emotions she could see shifting across his face. At the last second, she glanced to Pope, and his eyes were worried, but soft, and she smiled at him. It was the truth, and she didn’t mind him hearing it.

It felt good, actually, saying it in front of other people and suddenly she felt more solid, less exposed. She shifted her hand under the table to squeeze JJ’s thigh.

Next to her, JJ shrugged. “They’re it for me, sir. Long as they’ll have me.”

Heyward cleared his throat. “Well. All right, then.”

Mama H was beaming, her eyes shining. “JJ,” she said fondly, pushing one of the bowls toward him. “Why don’t you have some more brussel sprouts.”

“Uh, yeah, no—” Kie kicked him under the table and he slapped on a smile. “Mrs. H, I would really enjoy that.”

Heyward flipped his fork over in his hands, the end tapping softly against his placemat, but he didn’t begin eating again. Kie noticed Pope wasn’t eating, either. She swapped a look with John B. Maybe there was some Heyward family signal she had misread there.

“Listen, I like both of you,” Big Heyward started. Kie’s stomach sank. “JJ, you’re a hard worker, and Kiara, you’re a smart young lady and you ain’t afraid to get your hands dirty.”

She fumbled under the table, not even realizing what she was reaching for until JJ’s hand came around hers, warm and strong. She squeezed back, too hard like she wanted to reassure herself no one could take this away from her. Take _them_ away from her.

“Thanks, Mr. Heyward,” she managed, the food churning in her gut. _Here we go…_

“But my son is special.”

“Dad…” Pope warned.

“No.” Heyward’s voice cut across his. “You ain’t never been like the rest of the kids around here, and I’m not going to pussyfoot around that fact for anybody’s sake, not even theirs. JJ, you’re a Maybank, you got roots here that go back generations. Maybanks have been here near as long as this whole damn island. And Kiara, your family’s business is here. My son isn’t made to live out his life in the Outer Banks like we all are. He’s made for bigger things.”

Kie didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t wrong. She didn’t even disagree, though she was afraid to look at Pope because she knew she’d see the panic on his face. It was throbbing through her own veins, too, like an ache so deep she wasn’t ready to acknowledge it yet, for fear that it might spread through her whole body. She reached across the table with her free hand, and met Pope’s eyes.

He blinked, surprised for a second, before he clasped her fingers in his and held on, on top of the table right in front of everyone.

This time JJ was the first to speak. “Sir, Pope’s going to college if I have to sell both my kidneys to get him there.”

“Chapel Hill is a great school,” Pope jumped in. “And it’s right across the ferry, and—”

“ _Stanford_ ,” JJ and Kie said in unison. Loudly.

It had always been Stanford, they’d all heard about the forensic pathology program there enough times that they could practically give the tours themselves. They hadn’t talked about the future, none of them had, but she knew without even having to think about it that Pope wasn’t allowed to give up his dreams for them. He almost had, once, when he’d run out of that scholarship meeting for them and she didn’t like to think of the hollow hopelessness that had taken him over after that.

Heyward sat back and chuckled. “Well, son, it looks like you’re outnumbered.” He passed the rolls to JJ. “Always did like you two.”

#

JJ knew Big Heyward wasn’t like his own dad. He hadn’t expected the fists to fly, but he did count himself lucky that they’d gotten out of here without anything bad happening to upset Pope. Extra lucky that they’d gotten off clean without a parental speech or six. JJ wasn’t used to parents enough to be any good at sitting through lectures, and Heyward’s lectures especially tended to get him right in the gut. Made him feel as low as a stray dog with ticks on its fleas.

By the time they were hustling out the front hallway, Kie charmingly insisting on Mrs. H keeping what was left of the lemon pie, JJ could all but feel the freedom of open air from the van’s windows on the way home to those bong rips Sarah had promised.

Which was why he shouldn’t have been surprised when Heyward’s hand landed on his arm, holding him back when the rest of them escaped outside.

Pope noticed his absence immediately and came back in. “Dad…”

Heyward patted his shoulder. “Simmer down, son, I’m just talking to him. I won’t even cut off both balls.” He winked. “Just the one, at most.”

Pope choked, caught off guard, and his mother squeaked and swatted at Heyward with a dish towel. But Heyward waved a hand and they both backed off. Pope paused by the doorway, giving JJ one more look. _Want me to stay?_

And JJ gave him a cocky smirk. _Like this is anything I can’t talk my way out of._

The wisp of a smile crossed Pope’s face and he relaxed, letting Kie catch his hand and pull him onto the porch.

“Look, I’m only going to say this once,” Heyward said. “And then we’re never going to talk about it again, because people hear things when you get sloppy.”

“Loose lips sink ships.” JJ saluted. “Got it.”

“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea about what happened to Topper’s boat. Pope’s a good boy, but he got my temper and even a moment…he can’t afford those moments of slipping up.” Heyward cleared his throat. “Even before all this stuff, you all getting together, I knew you were the reason Pope still has a future.” Heyward studied him. “That’s some kind of thing you did, son.”

JJ squirmed, flicking his hand dismissively. “Pope would have found a way anyway, I bet. Studying dead fish at the marina, if he had to.”

“How much you still owe on that restitution?”

JJ considered lying. It felt like something pride shouldn’t admit to, like a trap, somehow. But part of him was proud at how much he and the Pogues had managed to pay down, a nickel and a dime at a time with honest work. Well, honest work and a little hustling Kooks on sandbagged bets at the Boneyard, but winning money from rich idiots was just fair game. “About 21,000.”

Heyward sucked in a breath at the total and JJ felt a little twinge of anger. It was a fucking lot less than it had been, even if Heyward didn’t seem as impressed as he’d hoped.

“I’d like to help you in paying that down,” Pope’s father said.

JJ shook his head immediately. “It’s my—that’s not necessary.”

“It’s not even your restitution, JJ,” Heyward said gently.

“Pope’s been helping me, and Kie, and John B.”

Heyward’s bushy eyebrows went up, and his lips pinched, though he kept his voice to a dark whisper. “Kiara Carrera helped you sink that boat?”

“NO!” JJ yelped. Shit. Shit, he should not have been so cocky about letting Pope and Kie take off. He was sinking, here. “She didn’t know a thing about it, when it happened. Neither did John B.” He started backing toward the door. “Anyway, I appreciate the offer, but it’s not that long anyway. Once the gold comes through, twenty thou will be like paying for a tank of gas. Just run the card and it’s gone. Until then, it’s my debt to pay.”

And part of him, the part that hadn’t told anybody about this because he knew they wouldn’t like it, wanted to pay it all off himself. Even after the gold came through.

He didn’t like to think about it, straight-on like that, but there were very few things in his life that JJ had to be proud of. Buying Kie’s ring, even though she’d fought, hinted, and even tried to seduce him into returning it to get his dirt bike back. He loved seeing it on her finger and he loved that she loved it, enough that he saw her looking at it when she thought he wasn’t looking. Most of all, he loved that he’d bought it for her.

What he’d done for Pope was the same. If the gold or Heyward paid off his restitution, it would take away the one good thing—the biggest good thing—he’d ever done in his life. And it made it better, nobler somehow, that nobody knew and the whole island thought he was the one who’d sunk the boat.

“But it isn’t your debt,” Heyward persisted, as stubborn as his son.

JJ tucked his hands into his pockets and dropped his voice. “Listen, Mr. H, I’m not smart like Pope. And I’m not rich like Kie. I can’t pay for him to go to some mainland college, or even go to college with him. I can’t imagine living on the mainland, and I wouldn’t fit in with his college friends even if I tried. This is…it’s something I can do. And the way he is, he might not ever need anything again.” He paused. “You don’t need to help with the restitution. You’ve done enough, for Pope. He’s the best kid in the Cut.”

Heyward’s chest puffed out, just a touch, and then his eyes narrowed. “Now you just kissing my ass.”

JJ grinned. “Is it working?”

“No,” Heyward grumbled, scruffling up his hair the way he hadn’t done since JJ was young. His scalp tingled, like it had forgotten how Heyward used to do that. “Why don’t you come around the shop tomorrow? I’ve got a new delivery idea, think it might really wring us the cash out of those fat Kook pockets.”

JJ started to nod and then stopped himself. Things were different, now. “Mr. H… I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want a job just because I’m helping your son. Or dating him.”

“Good, cause you ain’t getting one because o’ that.” Heyward pointed at him. “As soon as you stop being fast and working hard, first time you stop to go fishing instead of coming back around to make another run, your ass is fired and I’ll just get six more kids from the Cut that are hungrier than you. See if I don’t.”

JJ smirked. “Yes sir.”

“And cut that hair. You look like a damn ‘lectrified mop head.”

“I’ll take that under consideration, sir.”

He ducked out before Heyward changed his mind, and found the Pogues loitering nervously halfway between the door and the van.

“How many balls you down to?” John B drawled.

“Whatever I’ve got, it’s still bigger than yours.” JJ threw an arm around Pope and another around Kie, the difference in their height not setting him a bit off balance as he swaggered them down the walk to the VW.

“That wasn’t half bad,” Pope ventured. “I mean, I think it went well. Don’t you guys think it went well? Considering?”

JJ stroked his thumb down Pope’s back, slipping it under the edge of his shirt to let their skin rest together, nothing in between them for just a moment. He could almost feel the jittery energy washing out of Pope now that it was all over and nothing terrible had happened. Couldn’t blame the dude— he was feeling exactly the same and it wasn’t even his parents. He gave Pope’s ass a squeeze, hoping to distract him out of his nerves a little sooner rather than later.

“It was…” Kie was smiling. “I dunno, I think it was good for me, a little bit. In a way I wasn’t expecting. Did you guys get that?”

JJ burped, tilting his head back to blow it away from Kie so he wouldn’t get socked in the stomach. “I got a hell of a dinner out of the deal, and Heyward and I are still solid, so yeah, it was good for me. Was it good for you, gorgeous?”

“I think I’m going to tell my parents tomorrow,” Kie said.

And just like that, JJ’s good mood disappeared.


	26. Home Sweet Home

**Chapter 26: Home Sweet Home**

Pope had a bad feeling.

Kie hadn’t wanted any of them to go with her to tell her parents, not even John B. Pope did not think that was the best idea, but he understood her thinking. Her parents didn’t know the Pogues the way Pope’s parents did. The Carreras were from the Cut but it was understood that they’d moved up, and they lived in that new-ish subdivision right outside the gates of the Figure 8, within view of the welcome fountain.

A welcome fountain right in front of a locked gate. It seemed to Pope that everything about the Figure 8 was a great big middle finger, pointed to everybody else on the island.

That was also why he hadn’t wanted Kie to go alone. If her parents were the kind of people who shelled out extra to live near a fountain that wasn’t even theirs? First thing they were going to think was “What will our friends say?” Instead of worrying about their daughter. Pope thought Kie deserved to have somebody there for _her_ , when she came out to her parents about their relationship. Sarah volunteered to go along, but by then Kie had war in her eyes and she didn’t want anybody’s help. Pope understood that feeling, too. But he didn’t like it.

Things were different between him and his parents now that they knew. He felt older, more separate from them somehow. They were proud of him, that hadn’t changed—they’d said it, both with their eyes and even in words in the last week since he’d told them. But he was aware that the person he’d grown into wasn’t the son they’d expected to have, in many ways. He was his own person now. He liked it. And at the same time, he felt a little less _theirs_. He was starting to feel that ticking clock counting down until this fall, when he’d leave the island to start his own life.

It was better, though, not having to look away from his father’s eyes because there was a secret between them. And it was better knowing for sure—because you could know, but you never really _knew_ until you went there—that his father understood who he really was, and still respected him. Without Pope having to lie, or be somebody he really wasn’t.

Pope knew why Kie had to tell her parents. But he didn’t trust her parents the way he trusted his own. JJ must not, either, because he’d been smoking joints all afternoon like he had to blow through his stash before sunset or go up in flames along with it. Pope had long since given up lecturing JJ about his weed smoking, mostly because JJ handled himself better than most stoned people did. He wasn’t annoying like Sarah, or lazy like John B. He could hold it better than anybody but Kie, who was basically just a slightly unwound version of herself. JJ sometimes laughed a little more, high, but Pope secretly liked that.

Today, though…

“Seriously?” Pope slapped the lighter out of JJ’s hand, sending it skipping across the taut fabric of the hammock. “Do you really want to be high out of your mind when Kie calls to let us know how it went?”

“Definitely yes,” JJ said, scrambling nimbly across the hammock to retrieve the lighter, and rebalancing the hammock with a sprawled hand or knee just in time every time it nearly tipped. He lit his third—fourth? Fifth?—joint and inhaled deeply, speaking in that scratchy smoke-held-in voice. “You want some? Might still have enough to get a lightweight like you high.”

John B held out a hand. “Hey, if you’re offering.”

JJ swiped it away, glaring. “This is the last of it and we need it more than you. You don’t have a dog in this race.”

“How the fuck is Kie not my dog?” John B snapped, checking his phone for the forty-fifth time as if they’d all gone deaf and somehow hadn’t noticed it ringing.

“I’m telling her you said that,” Sarah said, poking him with one bare toe.

“You know what I mean.” JJ waved a hand, a little more unsteadily than Pope would have preferred.

“It’s disrespectful,” Pope said. “Being high when she needs us.”

JJ’s eyes sparked, but he was too high to work up into a full Maybank rage. “And what exactly do you think I’d be able to do for her if I was sober, Pope? _I’m_ the fucking problem. Me.” He gestured a slow oval to incorporate his whole self, the joint spinning dark smoke out into the heavy air. “You think her parents wouldn’t take the news better if the two names she dropped were Topper and Sterling McRockefeller or whatever the fuck?”

Pope ground his molars together until he could feel it all the way into his jaw. He leaned forward on the lawn chair, his elbows propped onto his knees and feeling every bit of the older/taller/steadier thing that had been sinking into him since he told his own parents. “JJ, you’re a good boyfriend.” He stopped to let the words sink in. “You think you’re not good for her just because you’re broke? I’m from just as deep in the Cut as you, JJ, and you’d never say that about me. Fuck it, man. You know Kie would bite the face off anybody who thought money should change anything for her.”

JJ blinked, slowly. “Didn’t say she cared. But her parents do. And they’re the ones saying whatever they’re saying right now that means she still hasn’t called. Doing whatever they’re doing to her.” The lock of his eyes on Pope’s was dark, and heavy. “Because of us.”

Pope flinched.

John B jumped to his feet. “Hey, guys, don’t—”

“What’s that?” Sarah interrupted, and they all stopped to listen. Kie’s Xterra appeared in the driveway a moment later. JJ put out his joint. Pope leapt up, taking a nervous step toward her car. But before he could meet her, Kie came barreling out, a backpack swinging crookedly from her shoulder as she slammed the door so hard it bounced right back open.

She stormed toward them, her face twisting with fresh tears as soon as she saw them and Pope felt his whole body sink, his stomach wrench.

Pope felt so sick the air turned to rancid oil in his lungs. At his side, JJ was so still, so quiet, like it was all already over.

“They…” she stuttered, and then she was crying so hard she couldn’t speak. “They—they—they—said if we had kids they wouldn’t even be _related_.”

John B was the one who caught her when she went to her knees, and he staggered to the ground with her, his Hawaiian shirt blaring too bright as he wrapped his whole gangly body around her, his cheek pressed against her head. “They would,” he said nonsensically. “They’d be related, they’d be real kids.”

“ _Half_ ,” she howled. “They said they’d be—They said—”

Anger surged in Pope. It started low, like heat in his ankles of all places, and heated up his body until his whole self felt alive again.

“ _Fuck them_ ,” Pope said, meaning those words more than he’d meant anything his whole life. “Fuck them.” He dropped to a knee next to Kie and hugged her tight, getting more than a little of John B in the bargain and not caring. “We’ll have as many kids as we goddamn please and they’ll be perfect.”

“They’ll be ours,” JJ said quietly.

Kie looked up, tears still streaming from her eyes when she met his and whatever she saw made her choke out an ugly sob and then steady a little. Pope turned his head, but JJ just looked sad to him. So fucking sad, like families had been disappointing him every day of his life. Which, Pope guessed, they kind of had.

Kie sat back, fumbling at her backpack and Sarah was there, pushing a tissue into her hand like girls just had tissue like magic, anytime, anywhere. Pope squatted on the balls of his feet, anger warring in him with a bitter resignation. Of fucking course JJ hadn’t been wrong. He was never wrong about cynical shit like that, as much as Pope always wanted to believe the world might be a little bit better than JJ thought. Most times, it wasn’t.

Kie blew her nose and pushed to her feet, and JJ caught her with one arm, hugging her roughly into his side. Hell, when had he gotten so tall? JJ kissed her forehead, didn’t say anything. His jaw ticked a little, the way it did when he was very, very angry.

For a moment, Kie squeezed her eyes shut and hid her face under JJ’s chin, pressed up against his collarbone where Pope always thought he smelled the best. Then she let him go and collapsed to sit on the edge of the hammock, her hands hanging limply in her lap.

“My mom was horrible, kept asking if JJ and Pope were really okay with that, like she thought I was somehow cheating on both of you and lying to you about it. Then, once I convinced her that we all knew and we were all together, she kept telling me you were both bad news and ‘not our people’ and this was just some kind of experiment I’d be embarrassed about when I was older. And my dad, I thought he’d be on my side at least a little, but instead he just…lost it,” she said, her voice lost and smaller than Pope had ever heard it.

Sarah threw a glance at John B, but Pope ignored them, clenching his jaw as he listened to Kie.

“I had to jump on my stupid dad to keep him from coming over here and they wouldn’t _listen._ He was acting like this was something you guys were making me do. Like I don’t have the brain to make my own decisions, and I’m just some ragdoll that doesn’t know what I want. Or like this was all just about sex and that was all you could want from—” Her voice broke and she started to cry again.

Sarah went to sit with her. “Sweetheart, that’s not what they meant. Parents just…have a hard time when their daughter falls in love and this—in their heads you’re outnumbered, two guys to one girl and they’re worried they’re pressuring you. I mean, they know JJ and Pope, don’t they? Once they calm down a little, they’ll realize they’d never—”

“But that’s the thing, they _don’t_.” Kie threw her tissue on the ground. “They don’t know them. I’ve kept the Pogues away this whole time because my parents were never comfortable with how we were together. So they’ve barely seen them outside the restaurant, or that one Midsommer party when those assholes ganged up on JJ…and then with that party, too, they never _listen_ to me. They don’t know shit about who I am, not really. When I tell them, they tell me to ‘just try’ to be something else. Whatever they really wish I was. Whether it’s about wanting to leave the Kook Academy, or not making friends with the people they want me to, or even with this and…” She paused, staring at the ground. “I’m done. I’m not going back.”

Pope went and sat beside her and took her hand, feeling a little dizzy with all this, but knowing she must be feeling even worse.

“Kie, they’re your _family_ ,” he said. “You can’t just—”

“They might be technically related to me, but if they don’t choose to know me they’re not my real family,” Kie said, her voice strengthening until she almost sounded like herself again. “If they want to keep me in their life only as a little puppet for them to project their own values and dreams onto…no. Just _no_. I wouldn’t accept that kind of treatment from a man and I won’t accept it from them. I’m moving out.”

She looked over to Sarah.

“I’ve got a couch,” the other girl began.

“No,” John B said, stepping forward. “You’ll move in here. This is your home now and you’ll stay here with us.”

It was that simple.

The bedroom, which had been JJ’s or John B’s depending on who went to bed first, became Kie’s. She draped colorful fabrics over the headboard and hung up a pencil sketch of a sea turtle. There wasn’t much room in the closet or the dresser so she just stuffed her bras and bikinis in on top of the wads of cargo shorts and tee shirts already in there.

John B moved most of his clothes to Sarah’s, but he still stayed on the couch sometimes. Especially that first week when Kie was crying a lot and JJ wasn’t really talking much, to just about anybody.

They both spent a lot of time sitting on the porch without talking, their arms or their feet touching, watching the new rooster. They loved the rooster.

And turned out that since the bedroom was Kie’s, it also became JJ’s. Pope informed his parents he was moving into the Chateau for the rest of the time left until college. And his parents informed _him_ that he’d stay there only on weekends until school was out. They said once summer came, he could move in, but he’d be coming home for dinner twice a week, and bringing his boyfriend and girlfriend as well. Pope felt that was mostly fair, and was happy with the compromise.

The next problem was, the three of them did not fit in the bed.

A thrift store king size was procured, which they had to take apart and reassemble to fit, and now the door didn’t open all the way because the room was really too small for a king size. Pope was grossed out by the idea of a used mattress, and wouldn’t sleep on it until they put three brand-new waterproof mattress covers on it. Plus sheets.

They could not decide who slept on what side of the bed. Kie loved to be in the middle, but then JJ and Pope wanted to be next to each other, too. But the nights they did that, JJ wanted her on _his_ side, and Pope never argued, but couldn’t help but feel a little forlorn without being able to reach her. And then when one of them would call him on that, he’d say it was fine and she could sleep on his side tomorrow maybe if she felt like it. And all of that wrangling was really for nothing because most nights, Kie and Pope woke up with just each other. JJ would be found out smoking by the ocean or passed out on the porch couch, or the hammock. Once, the HMS Pogue. Sometimes, on the pullout with John B, when he stayed over.

This made Kie very angry.

“I don’t want to wake you up!” JJ protested. “It’s not like I think John B’s hotter than you. Jesus, look at the guy, he looks like a mop wearing a Hawaiian shirt.”

“Love you too, buddy,” John B said through a mouthful of Fruity Pebbles, milk dripping down his chin.

“So you can wake John B up but not us?” Kie glared.

“I can’t wake John B up. No human person can. He can sleep through foghorns, tropical storms, and so far up to a Category Three hurricane.”

“Documented,” Pope put in. He understood why JJ kept getting up at night, and he knew better than to call the guy on it in front of people. Kie apparently did not feel the same.

“JJ,” she said. “It’s okay to have nightmares.”

“Oh my God, Kie, I’m not crying myself to sleep at night,” JJ groaned. “I’m just a restless sleeper, okay? Sometimes I talk in my sleep, and a lady doesn’t want to hear what I’m talking about, you get what I’m saying?” He waggled his eyebrows.

Pope’s chest started to ache at the lie. He looked at his boyfriend. Said, quietly, “JJ…”

“Jesus.” JJ threw up his hands. “You’re all a bunch of nannies. I can sleep where I want, fuck.” He stomped out, the screen door slamming behind him and the rooster crowing extra loud and long like it sensed his distress.

Kie burst into tears, which she never would have done before the whole parent disowning debacle. John B slurped up the rest of his Fruity Pebbles, patted her awkwardly, and offered, “Do you want me to kick your boyfriend out of bed the next time he crawls in with me?”

Pope pulled her into his arms. “I’ll figure it out,” he said, low and certain. He was dying to fix _something_ , and nightmares seemed easier than parents.

Pope did some research, and some thinking, and then started sleeping with cologne on. They both teased him about it, but the first night, JJ stayed in bed all night without budging. Kie was smart enough to wait until she and Pope were out on the surf boards alone that afternoon before she asked.

“Scent is the sense most closely tied to memory,” Pope explained.

He also rearranged the furniture, even though there was barely room for anything else besides their mega bed. It ended up stuffed against the wall instead of under the window, which Kie said was the opposite of feng shui, but she didn’t move it.

“JJ’s bed at his dad’s house was under the window,” Pope told Kie the next time they went surfing.

Kie bought new sheets. Silk ones, which JJ and John B both loved to make jokes about, and which she called “kinda bordello and sweaty.” Pope noted privately that they were definitely not the texture of any sheets JJ would have had as a kid. When JJ wasn’t looking, he gave their girlfriend a nod, and a smile. It was nice, to have someone else helping him look out for JJ.

JJ only ended up in the hammock one time that week, after Pope started with the cologne. They still couldn’t decide which sides of the bed they all wanted to sleep on, and always ended up in a messy pile, happy and way too hot even with the fan blowing full blast. By the second week, Kie couldn’t sleep without the smell of Pope’s cologne any more, either. JJ stopped sleeping on the hammock entirely and once, he woke up with a yelp, but instead of getting up, he let Pope spoon him back to sleep, Kie’s fingers combing lightly through his hair.

None of them ever brought that night up, not even when they were surfing.

It was messy, and there was a little more bickering, especially over bills, because JJ and Pope felt they should pay the utilities on the Chateau because Kie was rich and they weren’t. She thought that was the stupidest argument she’d ever heard and kept dropping off money at the utilities before they could get a check mailed in. JJ ate everyone’s food, all the time. And they had to switch to generic brand condoms because now that Kie wasn’t waiting tables at the Wreck anymore, they couldn’t keep up with the cost of Trojans.

But mostly, even though it started out because of some really bad shit, Pope thought moving in together in the Chateau was the best thing that had ever accidentally happened to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: I know a lot of people out there are not having the best day, week, or year of their lives right now. I hope, for all of us, that the last line of this chapter can be a candle in an otherwise gloomy room. 
> 
> Bad things are painful and unfair and fucked up and I personally wouldn't mind punching one in its ugly Bad Thing Face at the moment. And nearly always, they lead to good things, too. Holding out for that for all of you. You deserve good.


	27. The World At Large

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I’m unclear on what school Kie goes to—if she USED to go to the Kook Academy and then moved back to the regular school once things went south with Sarah, or whether she’s still at the Kook Academy. For the purposes of this fic, I’m going to assume she goes to the same school as the Pogues.

**Chapter 27: The World at Large**

There had always been jokes around the Cut that Kie was sleeping with all of the Pogues. The first time she came out with her hand in JJ’s and her arm slung around Pope’s waist, the gossip fires exploded and people were not kind. John B was the first to come home with a black eye from defending them. Kie, surprisingly, was the first to get arrested. Though she talked her way out of the police station without charges being pressed.

The first week after they came out at school, a freshman girl named Natasha came out, too. Pope tracked her down and suggested several helpful message boards. Kie gave her a hug and her number.

The second week, Kie kissed JJ goodbye for a second longer than she meant to, while holding Pope’s hand. The social studies teacher saw, and Kie landed in the guidance counselor’s office for inappropriate sexual behavior. She called their lawyers for the gold case—all of them, the whole firm—and refused to speak until they showed up. But once they did, her rant lasted longer than theirs. The rumor mill reached Pope in the middle of chemistry lab and he didn’t even shut off his Bunson burner before he strode out of class, through the administrative offices, and barged straight into the guidance counselor’s office with the principle barking on his heels. “This meeting is over,” was all he said before taking Kie’s hand and leaving with her.

JJ wasn’t there, but thought it was hilarious, and that became his new goodbye— delivered inexplicably in Arnold Schwartzenegger’s Terminator accent— for every situation: surfing, dental appointments, leaving the Chateau. _This meeting is over._

JJ thought everything was funny, actually. He took the jeers and jokes the easiest of all of them, laughing louder and more genuinely than their tormenters and telling them it was okay to be jealous he was dating both the hottest people in school. In their place, he told them, he’d be jealous as fuck.

Until the day two guys behind the school grabbed Kie’s hand out of JJ’s and thrust their hips at her, saying if she liked a little two-on-one action, they were volunteering. JJ did not react well. After that incident, JJ’s Zippo lighter was only allowed to live in Pope’s pocket, and he had to light all the joints, cigarettes, and bonfires.

Faster than they would have thought possible, the school got used to them. When prom tickets were sold, the coordinator took Pope aside to tell him it was okay to buy three tickets, even though they were sold in pairs. The three of them got nominated for prom court as a write in, even though they went fishing that day instead. They heard later they hadn’t won, but that there had been protestors outside prom—a whopping three of them. JJ wanted to track them down so he could get a selfie of himself with their “Deviants” picket sign, but this was vetoed. By everyone.

The guidance counselor got fired. The social studies teacher was still trying to get the smell of fish out of his bottom drawer. Their lawyers got JJ un-expelled, only half a week before graduation, under the iron clad promise of absolutely no arson under any circumstances for the rest of the year. They demanded separate payment for these jobs, apart from their commission for the gold, and Kie’s dad showed up and paid them in cash.

Kie started visiting her parents again, on the weekends. She didn’t move back in.

#

At graduation, JJ gave his diploma to Pope. “I’ll probably lose that shit anyway. Besides, you deserve more than half the credit for that diploma. You basically handwrote all my textbooks onto flashcards all those years, pretending they were for you.”

Pope just stared. “You knew?”

JJ scoffed. “If I could understand that stuff, they weren’t teaching it in AP classes. Besides, it seemed like you wanted the company and it wasn’t fair, you getting left by yourself every time you had homework to do. You always came dirt biking with me even though you used to hate it. I can do a little homework with you.”

John B graduated provisionally, contingent on him passing summer school. Pope started making John B’s flash cards before he even changed out of his gown.

The day ended with beers clinked in front of the sunset on the boat. They all kept their tassels, tied in a big knot around the floating keyring for the HMS Pogue. But their hats they sent spinning out like frisbees across the water, to sink and become part of the ocean’s past, just like the Royal Merchant.


	28. If Only The Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I posted 2 chapters today, so if this is the first one you’re clicking into, go back and read Ch 27 first.

JJ was annoyed. The weather was perfect—slight breeze, not too many mosquitos, beer both cold and plentiful—and his girlfriend was nowhere in sight.

“She’s researching,” Pope had said. He considered researching the best excuse for missing anything, but JJ remained unconvinced. Research, to him, seemed like the dictionary definition of missing out on life. Studying it, not doing it. So he didn’t feel at all bad when he jogged inside, letting the screen door slap closed behind him, and snagged her laptop right out of her lap. She glared.

“JJ! I’m researching for next year!”

“What is there to research? You’re doing useful shit for people who really need it. Clean water and jobs for the ladies, right?”

“Microloans for female entrepreneurs, JJ. And a lot of these NGOs talk a big game and then toss most of the donations right back to their execs instead of the people they’re supposed to be helping. It’s just like anything else: you’ve got to sift through a lot of greed to find the few places who are really putting their money where their mouth is.”

He set the laptop on the chair, safely across the porch from her. “Okay, but that’s not until this fall. Can you research how to be the best do-gooder you can be tomorrow, maybe?” He gave her a hangdog look. “Pope’s lonely. Just look at him in that hammock, all by himself.”

Her lips quirked, the way they always did when she was trying not to smile. “Oh, is _Pope_ lonely?”

“He is.” JJ nodded. “It’s terrible. He needs a lot of cuddling, that Pope. Really high maintenance.”

She held out her hand and let him pull her to her feet, exhaling a big sigh. “Well, I suppose if it’s for _Pope_ , I can drag myself back to the hammock.”

She pinched his butt on the way out, so JJ considered it a double win for his persuasive skills.

As the sun dipped lower, the mosquitos got worse, but JJ thought it was a pretty fair trade, since he’d managed to cram all three of them into the creaking hammock, their bare feet all tangled and a bit of Kie’s hair—like always—ending up in his mouth. Pope’s fingers were playing down his forearm and Kie’s hand was making some seriously flirtatious inroads on the waistband of his shorts.

All. Summer. Long. He had this—this absolutely perfect life—all summer long, _and_ he never had to go to school again. Squinting out over the water, JJ smiled.

“Are we deluding ourselves?” Pope asked, at the same time.

“What?” Kie’s nose crinkled.

“I can’t stop thinking about if we can really do the long distance thing, for this long. That all of us can stay together and still do the things we want to do with our lives, when we’re so far apart.” Pope pulled himself further up, setting the hammock to swinging. “Because if it’s gonna fall apart anyway, I’d rather it be right now. Not all slow and painful.”

Beside JJ, Kie tensed, and she threw him a look.

JJ’s heart hiccuped. Fuck. He’d known Pope was going to freak out at some point. But he pretty much had him penciled in for an August nervous breakdown, and this was just a hair into June.

“Pope…” JJ started.

“No, don’t even say it, JJ.” Pope shook his head. “You always believe in crazy ideas. You always believe we’re not going to get caught, and the plan’s going to work, and that snakes are afraid of _dogs,_ for god’s sake.”

“We found the sunken treasure, didn’t we? Sounded pretty fucking crazy when John B sat right there and said we could do it, but we did. People been looking for over a hundred years for that gold and you know who found it?” JJ hooked a thumb at his chest. “Us. The motherfucking Pogues, that’s who.”

“That’s the key, Pope, the gold,” Kie jumped in. “This latest motion is going to carry the case, because there’s no way Ward’s lawyers can counter it. Not with him in prison for multiple homicides and so much evidence that we had the only trail of provenance to prove how we _found_ the gold, when all Ward had was the gold itself. It looks very much like he’d stolen it, just like we’re telling the judge he did. By the end of the summer, the paperwork should be wrapped up.”

“And then what? We’ll be rich? So what? Money doesn’t solve everything, Kie.”

“We can fly anywhere we want as often as we want. Without the gold, it would be crazy. A three-person long distance relationship, spread out across multiple continents and time zones? No way. But with the gold? It’ll be a cinch.”

JJ nodded vigorously. “We’ll be jet-setters.”

Frankly, he hadn’t really thought of that angle. He didn’t have much of a plan. He knew his future was on the island, and that theirs was, too. Eventually. But Pope needed a fancy degree, and Kie needed to go out and see some things, help some people, before she’d be happy settling back down in the Outer Banks. JJ figured he wasn’t ever going to leave them because there wasn’t anybody on earth better than them. And if one of them tried to leave him? Well, he’d hitchhike to where they were at and sex them up real good until they changed their mind.

But now that Kie mentioned it, it did sort of seem like the gold would make things easier.

“Kie, for real.” Pope stared her down, neither of them blinking. “You believe it for real, not just saying it because that’s what you want.”

“I believe it for real, Pope. We’re gonna make it.”

Pope glanced at him. “Aren’t you going to get bored on the island alone, before we come back? Or lonely?”

JJ scoffed. “Nah. Couple of seasons of hazard pay on those off-shore oil rig jobs, and John B and I will be able to afford our own fishing boat. Get a dog and name it Pogue. We’ll get houses looking out over the marsh with side by side docks, him and Sarah’ll have a ton of babies and he’ll always be over, drinking up all my damn beer. Bet I’ll wish I was lonely by the time the two of you get sick of conquering the world and come on back.”

Pope started to smile, just a little. “That sounds…yeah, that sounds not so bad.”

“Except those offshore oil rigs are dangerous as hell and you’ll probably get yourself killed before you ever get money for your own boat.” Kie glared. This was not a new argument.

“Eh,” JJ scoffed. “Things have tried harder to kill me than that, and they haven’t managed it yet.” He winked. “Besides, if John B is there, he’ll end up in the hospital before I do. He always does.”

“Except for the time with the cliff.”

“And those wild dogs.”

“And the free diving competition.”

“And the raccoon babies.”

JJ lifted a finger. “Yes. But what about the spear gun fight, the falling off the water tower, the getting shot at, the getting choked by Topper, the burning down church, the case of rabies from that possum, the time the dock collapsed, the summer he sunk his dad’s old boat, the one roofing job when he tipped the ladder over, _and_ the three-legged hot dog eating race?”

Kie and Pope were silent.

JJ nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

The sunset light was almost gone, but Kie laid her head back on his shoulder like she wasn’t quite ready to go in yet, her fingers linked with Pope’s. “Things are almost perfect, you guys.” She sighed. “Now if the gold would just hurry up and come through.”

JJ shifted so her small shoulders lay more fully against his chest, Pope’s arm brushing against his. He didn’t know what to say to that. Truth was, he didn’t know anybody anymore who had a life as good as his. Not even a Kook, and especially not any of the Maybanks. His clothes weren’t thrown out on the lawn, his lip wasn’t split, and he wasn’t just dating one hottie—he had two who weren’t just slumming it with him, they loved him. Like legit, actually fucking loved him. He liked money as much as the next guy—and boats even more—but no matter how big he talked, he couldn’t quite imagine anything better than what he had right here in this moment.

“Yeah,” he said, leaning back against Pope’s shoulder and letting his head tuck into the warm space against his boyfriend’s neck, his fingers toying with Kie’s ring. “If only the gold…”

* * *

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I haven’t ruled out the possibility of writing an epilogue for this telling what they do in their adult lives, but I haven’t had it in me as of yet, so I’m not making promises. It might yet show up.
> 
> Thank all of you lovely and beautiful people for reading along, and leaving such wonderful comments along the way!


End file.
